Late Proterozoic
first skeletal elements, first soft-bodied metazoans, first animal
traces
Paleozoic
-
Cambrian: first fishes, first chordates
-
Ordovician: sudden diversification of metazoan families
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Silurian: first vascular land plants
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Devonian: first amphibians, jawed fishes diversify
-
Carboniferous - Pennsylvanian / Mississippian: first reptiles,
scale trees, seed ferns
-
Permian: major extinctions, reptiles diversify
Mesozoic
-
Triassic: first mammals, first dinosaurs
-
Jurassic: first birds, dinosaurs diversify
-
Cretaceous: extinction of dinosaurs, first primates, first
flowering plants
Cenozoic
-
Paleogene / Neogene: mammals diversify
-
Quaternary: evolution of humans
