The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us

There’s another clue that therapsids were raising their metabolisms and better controlling their body heat. Hair.

Evolving alongside the angiosperms, in a coevolutionary waltz, were their pollinators:

By the end of the Cretaceous, angiosperms composed some 80 percent of floras and had blossomed into familiar forms like palms and magnolias.

first 4.43 billion years of Earth history were devoid of grass, but once it evolved, it changed everything.

One out of every five mammal species alive right now is a bat—some

Mammals would be all those animals that evolved from the first creature to develop a key innovation: a new jaw-closing joint between the dentary bone of the lower jaw and the squamosal bone of the upper skull.

Whatever they were, they weren’t unique to us. Later anatomists identified this same three-bone set in other mammals—but only mammals.

Their new molar design was key to their—or, I should say, our—success,

The first group, with their two skull openings, were the diapsids. They would eventually evolve into lizards, snakes, crocodiles, dinosaurs, birds, and turtles (which closed up their holes). The second group, with their single skull opening, were the synapsids. They would diversify into a dazzling array of species, including—more than a hundred mil

some fourteen hundred total—a diversity exceeded only by rodents.