Era report WAC

   My era is the Mesozoic era when dinosaurs ruled the earth. The reason why it's called the Mesozoic era is because Mesozoic means middle animals. The Mesozoic era is separated into three different periods which is the Cretaceous period, the Jurassic period, and the Triassic period. The two continents Europe and Asia both slammed into North America and Pangaea was formed. Pangaea is a super continent that soon drifted apart which formed Laurasia and Gondwana. The rest of the continents started to drift apart (continental drift) and they kind of had the look of what the earth is today.

   In the Mesozoic era besides dinosaurs and other animals, there was plants. Some plants that existed during the Mesozoic era was ferns, gymnosperms, and flowering plants. Ferns are plants that appeared after the Permian extinction along with gymnosperms. Gymnosperms are plants that had very good reproductive systems. Their reproductive systems were good because their seeds and pollen could go through a drought and then grow into the infant plant. Then the flowered plants entered in the Cretaceous period attracted many insects such as butterflies, ants, termites, and bees. In return the insects would spread the pollen to other plants. The flowered plants appeared on the trees such as maple trees and magnolia trees.

   Animals in the Mesozoic era included dinosaurs, small mammals, amphibians, and some sea creatures. Some dinosaurs in the Mesozoic era is the Apatosaurus and the Brachiosaurus which lived in the Jurassic period. There was also a small lizard like creature that was alive. They were called Diapsids and you could recognize them by their holes on their heads just behind the eyes. There are also the small sea creatures which is fish, corals, and Mollusks. Besides the sea creatures, some lizards started to be able to breath in the water and on land. This caused them to become the top of the food chain in the Mesozoic era.

   The climate in the Mesozoic era was tropical and it had a higher temperature than the Paleozoic era. In the Mesozoic era, there was also more deserts and less swamps since it was also dryer in the Mesozoic era than the, Paleozoic. Other than climate though there was also some important events, such as the Triassic extinction and 2 extinctions in the Jurassic period. During theTriassic extinction the creatures that became extinct was the labyrinthodont amphibians, conodonts, and all marine reptiles (the reptiles that could breath in water and land). Then in the Jurassic period the first extinction happened. Shallow water species and 80% of marine bivalve species went extinct during this time. Lastly the 2nd extinction happened near the end of the Jurassic period and some species severely affected by this, was the ammonoids, marine, reptiles, and bivavles, There was also some dinosaurs that were affected by this such as the stegosaurus and most sauropods. These dinosaurs didn't make it to the Cretaceous period.

   In conclusion there were some important events and some non important events that happened during this era. There were different plants and a variety of animals, some lived and some didn't. Some animals may have even only been alive in one period. But some I think evolved and survived to our modern world, or they might have just stayed the same and still survived. There may even be some animals that we didn't know existed in the Mesozoic era.