Geologic periods[edit]

Following the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic extended roughly 186 million years, from
251.902 to 66 million years ago when the Cenozoic Era began. This time frame is
separated into three geologic periods. From oldest to youngest:

Triassic (251.902 to 201.3 million years ago)

Jurassic (201.3 to 145 million years ago)
Cretaceous (145 to 66 million years ago)
The lower boundary of the Mesozoic is set by the PermianTriassic extinction event,
during which approximately 90% to 96% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial
vertebrates became extinct.[5] It is also known as the "Great Dying" because it is
considered the largest mass extinction in the Earth's history. The upper boundary
of the Mesozoic is set at the CretaceousPaleogene extinction event (or KPg
extinction event[6]), which may have been caused by the impactor that created
Chicxulub Crater on the Yucatn Peninsula. Towards the Late Cretaceous large
volcanic eruptions are also believed to have contributed to the
CretaceousPaleogene extinction event. Approximately 50% of all genera became
extinct, including all of the non-avian dinosaurs.

Triassic[edit]
The Triassic ranges roughly from 252 million to 201 million years ago. The Triassic
is a time in Earth's history bracketed between the Permian Extinction and the
TriassicJurassic extinction event, two of the big five, and precedes the Jurassic
Period. It has three major epochs: the Early Triassic, the Middle Triassic and the
Late Triassic.[7]

The Early Triassic was between about 252 million to 247 million years ago and was
dominated by deserts as Pangaea had not yet broken up, thus the interior was
nothing but arid. The Earth had just witnessed a massive die-off in which 95% of
all life became extinct. The most common vertebrate life on earth were
Lystrosaurus, labyrinthodonts, and Euparkeria along with many other creatures that
managed to survive the Great Dying. Temnospondyls evolved during this time and
would be the dominant predator for much of the Triassic.[8]

Plateosaurus (a prosauropod)
The Middle Triassic spans roughly from 247 million to 237 million years ago. The
Middle Triassic featured the beginnings of the breakup of Pangaea, and the opening
of the Tethys Sea. The ecosystem had recovered from the devastation that was the
Great Dying. Algae, sponge, corals, and crustaceans all had recovered, and the
reptiles began to get bigger and bigger. New aquatic reptiles evolved, such as
ichthyosaurs and nothosaurs. Meanwhile, on land, pine forests flourished, as did
groups of insects like mosquitoes and fruit flies. The first ancient crocodilians
evolved, which sparked competition with the large amphibians that had since ruled
the freshwater world.[9]

The Late Triassic spans roughly from 237 million to 201 million years ago.
Following the bloom of the Middle Triassic, the Late Triassic featured frequent
heat spells, as well as moderate precipitation (10-20 inches per year). The recent
warming led to a boom of reptilian evolution on land as the first true dinosaurs
evolved, as well as pterosaurs. During the Late Triassic, some advanced cynodonts
gave rise to the first Mammaliaformes. All this climatic change, however, resulted
in a large die-out known as the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event, in which many
archosaurs (excluding pterosaurs, dinosaurs and crocodylomorphs), most synapsids,
and almost all large amphibians became extinct, as well as 34% of marine life in
the fourth mass extinction event of the world. The cause is debatable.[10][11]

Jurassic[edit]
Rhamphorhynchus
The Jurassic ranges from 200 million years to 145 million years ago and features 3
major epochs: The Early Jurassic, the Middle Jurassic, and the Late Jurassic.[12]

The Early Jurassic spans from 200 million years to 175 million years ago.[12] The
climate was much more humid than the Triassic, and as a result, the world was very
tropical. In the oceans, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs and ammonites were abundant. On
land, dinosaurs and other archosaurs stake their claim as the dominant race of the
land, with species such as Dilophosaurus at the top. The first true crocodiles
evolved, pushing out the large amphibians to near extinction. All-in-all,
archosaurs rise to rule the world. Meanwhile, the first true mammals evolve,
remaining relatively small sized but otherwise expanding ecologically; the Jurassic
Castorocauda, for example, had adaptations for swimming, digging and catching fish.
Fruitafossor, from the late Jurassic period about 150 million years ago, was about
the size of a chipmunk and its teeth, forelimbs and back suggest that it broke open
the nest of social insects to prey on them (probably termites, as ants had not yet
appeared). The first multituberculates like Rugosodon evolve, while
volaticotherians take to the skies.

The Middle Jurassic spans from 175 million to 163 million years ago.[12] During
this epoch, dinosaurs flourished as huge herds of sauropods, such as Brachiosaurus
and Diplodocus, filled the fern prairies of the Middle Jurassic. Many other
predators rose as well, such as Allosaurus. Conifer forests made up a large portion
of the forests. In the oceans, plesiosaurs were quite common, and ichthyosaurs were
flourishing. This epoch was the peak of the reptiles.[13]

Stegosaurus
The Late Jurassic spans from 163 million to 145 million years ago.[12] During the
Late Jurassic, the first avialans, like Archaeopteryx, evolved from small
coelurosaurian dinosaurs. The increase in sea-levels opened up the Atlantic sea way
which would continue to get larger over time. The divided world would give
opportunity for the diversification of new dinosaurs.

Cretaceous[edit]
The Cretaceous is the longest period in the Mesozoic, but has only two epochs: the
Early Cretaceous, and the Late Cretaceous.[14]

Tylosaurus (a mosasaur) hunting Xiphactinus

The Early Cretaceous spans from 145 million to 100 million years ago.[14] The Early
Cretaceous saw the expansion of seaways, and as a result, the decline and
extinction of sauropods (except in South America). Some island-hopping dinosaurs,
like Eustreptospondylus, evolved to cope with the coastal shallows and small
islands of ancient Europe. Other dinosaurs rose up to fill the empty space that the
Jurassic-Cretaceous extinction left behind, such as Carcharodontosaurus and
Spinosaurus. Of the most successful would be the Iguanodon which spread to every
continent. Seasons came back into effect and the poles got seasonally colder, but
dinosaurs still inhabited this area like the Leaellynasaura and Muttaburrasaurus
which inhabited the polar forests year-round. Since it was too cold for crocodiles,
it was the last stronghold for large amphibians, like Koolasuchus. Pterosaurs got
larger as species like Tapejara and Ornithocheirus evolved. Mammals continued to
expand ecologically; eutriconodonts produced fairly large, wolverine-like predators
like Repenomamus and Gobiconodon, early therians began to expand into metatherians
and eutherians, and cimolodont multituberculates went on to become large components
of the fossil record.

The Late Cretaceous spans from 100 million to 66 million years ago. The Late
Cretaceous featured a cooling trend that would continue on in the Cenozoic period.
Eventually, tropics were restricted to the equator and areas beyond the tropic
lines featured extreme seasonal changes in weather. Dinosaurs still thrived as new
species such as Tyrannosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Triceratops and hadrosaurs dominated
the food web. In the oceans, mosasaurs ruled the seas, filling the role of the
ichthyosaurs, which, after declining, had disappeared in the Cenomanian-Turonian
boundary event. Though pliosaurs had gone extinct in the same event, long necked
plesiosaurs, such as Elasmosaurus, continued to thrive. Flowering plants, possibly
appearing as far back as the Triassic, became truly dominant for the first time.
Pterosaurs in the Late Cretaceous declined for poorly understood reasons, though
this might be due to fossil record bias as their diversity seems to be much higher
than previously thought. Birds became increasingly common and diverse, diversifying
in a variety of enantiornithe and ornithurine forms. Though mostly small, marine
Hesperornithes became relatively large and flightless, adapted to life in the open
sea. Metatherians and primitive eutherian also became common and even produced
large and specialised species like Didelphodon and Schowalteria. Still, the
dominant mammals were multituberculates, cimolodonts in the north and
gondwanatheres in the south. At the end of the Cretaceous, the Deccan traps and
other volcanic eruptions were poisoning the atmosphere. As this was continuing, it
is thought that a large meteor smashed into earth 66 million years ago, creating
the Chicxulub Crater in an event known as the K-T Extinction, the fifth and most
recent mass extinction event, in which 75% of life on earth became extinct,
including all non-avian dinosaurs.[15] Everything over 10 kilograms became extinct.
The age of the dinosaurs was over.[16][17]