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

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

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

special, new type of foliage was in control of the music, the driving force of Cretaceous evolution. These were the angiosperms, more commonly known as the flowering plants.

the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse was a greater botanical catastrophe than the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs.

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

The end-Permian was the mother of all mass extinctions, and it claimed something like 90 percent of all species, maybe more.

These were among the first mammals to develop high-crowned teeth, a godsend for eating tough vegetation, like dirt-encrusted roots and tubers. Because mammals can’t replace their teeth throughout their lives, eating hard foods is risky, as a broken tooth can mean a death sentence. Evolving supertall teeth, which can gradually wear down over many ye

Because these two former jaw bones are now fully detached from the jaw, we can call them by their new names: the hammer and the ring. This small step was revolutionary. Now the jaws could go their own way, and become more efficient at biting and chewing, without worrying about interfering with hearing function.

mammals that find themselves washed up on islands are known to change aspects of their biology and behavior to adapt to the constraints of their new home. One of the most common

Warm-blooded animals—technically called endotherms—have broken free of this handicap. They produce their own heat—often by packing more energy-producing mitochondria into their cells—and