Timeline of the Evolution of the Major Groups of Organisms

Evolutionary Biology (BI 25) Lecture Notes

Timelines, Origin of Life and Other General Resources

EVOLUTIONARY/GEOLOGICAL TIMELINE

Scientific American Explorations: Bugs in the Data?: 8/96

Summary Table of the Evolution of the Major Vertebrate Groups

Era	Period (years)	Epoch	Plants	Animals	Geology/Climate	Electronic Resources for the Major Groups	Electronic Resources for Extinctions
Cenozoic	Quatenary (2.5 MYA)	Recent	Increase in herbaceous plants	Appearance of humans	Ice Ages - Glacial Periods		The Holocene Mass Extinction?
					Continents in
				Mass extinctions of large mammals and birds	present positions

	Tertiary (65 (MYA)	Pleiostocene	Mass extinctions		Continents still drifting
				First Homo
		Pliocene	Grasslands replace forests	Primitive hominids		Fossil Hominids
				Bird Radiation		Introduction to the Aves
		Miocene		First Apes
		Oligocene		Mammal Radiation		The Hall of Mammals
				groups present
		Eocene		Age of bony fishes
		Paleocene	Radiation of	First Placental
			flowering plants	Mammals
				Pollinating Insects
Era	Period (years)	Epoch	Plants	Animals	Geology
Mesozoic	Cretaceous (135 (MYA)		First flowering	Dinosaurs - extinction, Marsupial Mammals	Mountain building	Dinosaur Volcano Greenhouse Extinction by Dewey McLean Alvarez asteriod theory - off Yucatan Peninsula Marsupial Mammals	The End-Cretaceous (K-T) Extinction
			plants	Ammonite Extinction	Continental Drift
	Jurassic (195 MYA)		Gymnosperms and	First birds, Primitive Mammal Radiation	Continents separated and	Fossil Record of the Aves Introduction to Multituberculates
			Ferns disperse	Age of Dinosaurs	are drifting	Introduction to the Ichthyosauria
	Triassic (240 MYA)		Gymnosperms -	Radiation of dinosaurs		Pterosauria
			dominant	First Dinosaurs dinosaurs - herbivores dinosaurs - carnivores	Continents first separate	Ischigualasto Formation, Argentina The Dinosauria
				First Primitive Mammals earliest mammals early mammals - herbivores early mammals - carnivores
				Reptile Radiation		See the Archosaurs
				Marine Arthropods
				dominant
				First beetles

Era	Period (years)	Epoch	Plants	Animals	Geology
Paleozoic	Permian (285 MYA)		Mass Extinctions	Mass Extinctions	Violent Geologic and	The Paleozoic Era	The Permian Mass Extinction
				of Marine Life
			Decline of	Decline of Amphibians	Climate disturbances
			non seed plants	Appearance of Therapsid	Pangea
				Reptiles
				Increase in Reptiles
				and Insect
	Carboniferous (375 MYA)		First Gymnosperms	Early Reptiles	Gondwanaland
			Spread of non-seed	First winged Insects
			plants, ferns and allies
	Devonian (420 MYA)		First seed plants	Origin, diversification of		Tetrapods: Fossil Record	The Devonian Mass Extinction
			Example of higher terrestrial plants	Amphibians, bony fishes		Actinopterygii: Fossil Record
	Silurian (450MYA)		First vascular plants	Golden Age of fishes
				Origin - jawed fishes		Introduction to the Chondrichthyes
				radiation of Agnathans
			First terrestrial plants - primitive terrestrial plants, fossil example	First terrestrial invertebrates

	Ordovician (520 MYA)			First vertebrates - fishes		Introduction to the Petromyzontiformes-Lampreys and their Allies	The Ordovician Mass Extinction
				Diversification of marine invertebrates - Echinoderms

	Cambrian (570 MYA)		Algae - dominant	Trilobites dominant Brachiopods		Introduction to the Trilobita Introduction to the Brachiopoda Burgess Shale fossils	The Cambrian Mass Extinction
			plants	Explosive marine diversification		Plantae: Fossil Record - Chart of First Appearances of Major Groups

				Cambrian explosion - First appearance of most phyla

Era	Period (years)	Epoch	Plants	Animals	Geology		The Precambrian and Vendian Mass Extinctions
Proterozoic	.6 BYA		Plant-like protists		Continental Drift	The Proterozoic Era
	2 BYA		First eukaryotes			Fossil Record of the Bacteria
	3.5 BYA - 2 BYA		Photosynthetic bacteria and stromatolites		Oxygen Atmosphere

	3.5 BYA		First prokaryotes
	4 BYA
	4.5 BYA		None		Formation of the earth

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Copyright © 2001 Jay Pitocchelli. All rights reserved. The contents of this page are the intellectual property of Dr. Jay Pitocchelli for distribution to students enrolled in Evolutionary Biology BI 25 at Saint Anselm College. These pages may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or published in any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without prior written approval of Jay Pitocchelli. Students enrolled in Evolutionary Biology BI 25 at Saint Anselm College have permission to print this material for their lecture notes.