About 250M years ago, 90% of species on Earth died during the Permian extinction. All of that loss created a lot of vacant niches to fill. And not long after, the first mammals, our ancestors, appeared.
Life on this pale blue dot will continue to be resilient - whether or not we’re part of it. #Thanksgiving #science #history
@Sheril In that vein, I recently finished reading Beasts Before Us by Elsa Panciroli, and it sorta begins where your post ends, with the end-Permian extinction and the rise of our synapsid ancestors, etc.
It also does a good job of explaining how diverse mammals have been as a clade, not just the groups we see today, but the vast diversity that existed in-between, the marsupials' metatherian cousins or the wild variety of Cretacious mammal niches.
https://www.amazon.com/Beasts-Before-Us-Origins-Evolution-ebook/dp/B092QZBLN6/
Sheril Kirshenbaum
Noah Cook
Sisyphus with a Hat