Geologic

Time
Scale

Cretaceous Period
last

and longest segment of the

Mesozoic Era

lasted

approximately 79 million

years
no

great extinction or burst of

diversity separated the Cretaceous
from the Jurassic period

Cretaceous Period Plants

First radiated in the middle Cretaceous, about 100 million years ago

Cretaceous Period
Plants

Archaefructuswas described
as the earliest known
angiosperm

It is reconstructed as a
modestly-sized water plant
(Friis et al. 2003)

Most similar to the modern

black pepper plant and
thought to be at least 122
million years old
Archaefructus liaoningensisSun et
al., 1998.

Cretaceous Period Animals

Flying termite in amber

Wasp
Lower Cretaceous
Crato Formation, Brazil

Wasp
Lower Cretaceous
Liaoning Province, China

Soldier termites in Colombian

amber

Herbivorous ornithischians

Ankylosaurus

Iguanodon

Tyrannosaurus rex

Confuciusornis
earliest known bird to have a true
beak
It lived about 10 to 15 million
years after Archaeopteryx, but like
its early ancestor, it still had
clawed fingers
males were typically larger than
females and sported long, narrow
tail feathers that they may have
used to attract mates

K-Pg Extinction Event

marks the boundary between the Cretaceous and

Paleogene periods
the event was formally known as the CretaceousTertiary (K-T) event

Within this layer:

indications of shocked quartz and tiny glass-like
globes called tektites
smaller,
omnivorous
terrestrial
animals,
like
mammals, lizards, turtles, or birds, may have been
able to survive as scavengers
evidence that a series of huge volcanic eruptions at
the Deccan traps

Cretaceous Period
Climate
the

world was a warmer place during

Cretaceous period

poles

were cooler than the lower

latitudes

animals

lived over even in colder areas

e.g Hadrosaurus

"nuclear winter

Early steps of angiospermpollinator coevolution

Shusheng

Hu, David L. Dilcher, David

M. Jarzen, and Winship Taylor

Coevolution
is used to describe cases where two
(or more)species reciprocally affect
each other's evolution.

Angiosperms

Vectors
Birds and Bats
Lepidoptera
Diptera
Hymenoptera
Coleoptera
anemophily

Pollination
occurs when pollen is moved within
flowers or carried from flower to flower
by pollinating animals or by the wind.
What

does pollination do?

The transfer of pollen in and between

flowers of the same species leads to
fertilization, and successful seed and
fruit production for plants.

Understanding pollination
biology
of fossil plants

Pollen from wind-pollinated flowers

Dry with a smooth surface
Of moderate size
Produced in large quantities
Zoophilous flowers have pollen
sticky
Generally with ornate surfaces
Of variable size
Produced in variable quantities

Clumping may be caused by:

Viscous

fluids ( pollenkitt)
Tangling
Common walls

Roles in pollen dispersal and

pollination
Retain

pollen in anther
Increasing adhesion to the pollinator
Transporting multiple pollen grains to
the stigma

Conclusion
The stickiness that forms the pollen
clumps indicates an adaptation for
zoophilous pollination