The Extinction Of Dinosaurs Dinosaurs walked the earth for an incredible 165 million years. They first appeared in the late Triassic period, before diversifying to dominate the planet, and become the largest land animals to ever lived. However, their reign was to come to an end. 65 million years ago, dinosaurs and all other creatures died. This extinction was used to mark the boundary between the Cretaceous period, when the last dinosaurs lived, and the Tertiary period, when they became extinct.
Reptile Evolution in the Cenozoic Era Cenozoic Era is that stretch of geologic time that began approximately 65 mya and extends into the present. It is divided into Paleogene period (Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene) 65-23 mya, Neogene period (Miocene, Pliocene) 23-2.58 mya, and Quarternary period (Pleistocene, Holocene) 2.6 mya to present Reptiles that survived the mass extinction continued to evolve during this time into various open ecological niches (Fossilmuseum, 2016). As evidenced by existing records, not much of evolutionary changes occurred over this period since most reptiles resembled what we recognize them to be today and all dinosaurs except birds lived on. The Cenozoic period is characterized by diversification of plants inclusive
Planet Earth has experience four eras that include eleven periods and six mass extinctions throughout evolution. The Evolving Planet exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago, IL describes the evolution of Earth in great detail. The evolution of Earth starts in the Precambrian period and continues to the Cenozoic era, which is still continuing today. Evolution is the idea that living species are descendants of ancestral species that existed from earlier forms of life. All the organisms, rocks, or other products originated from one single cell during the Precambrian period.
When most people think of the word “extinct”, they relate it to animals, instead of plants. Plants are going extinct too, along with animals, and in reality, plants are much more important to us than animals. Our ecosystem can last without consumers (animals), but we cannot last without producers (plants). One type of plant that is endangered is the Baobab tree. The Baobab tree is most famous for covering much of Madagascar, and is increasingly threatened.
After this came the Devonian period which was 416 million years ago. The cephalaspis swam in freshwater and evolved so it could swim in water and walk on land. Two million year later, 2.5 million years ago, was the very well known Triassic period. This is when the earliest dinosaurs roamed the Earth. This is also when the first mammals were being born and evolving.
The dinosaurs are vertebrate animals that dominated our planet for over 160 million years ago. It is said that they first appeared on our land 230 million years ago. Our attention was drawn to the dinosaurs after watching the blockbuster science fiction film entitled Jurassic Park directed by Steven Spielberg in 1993. By the end of the Cretaceous period, about 65 million years ago, they had experienced a catastrophic extinction. How often have you wondered what happened to the dinosaurs?
Once they discover how the animals are being threatened they will try to prevent them from becoming endangered (Endangered Species: Facts). The next level right before extinction is endangered animals, and it is very different than threatened animals. Endangered animals is when an animal species starts to get less populated, and their conditions of living become very hard means they are becoming endangered animals (Endangered Species: Facts). Once an animal reaches endangerment, then people need to take caution when they are near any of those animals (Endangered Species: Facts). When an animal becomes endangered, than people have no idea how long these animals have till they will be lost forever (Endangered Species: Facts).
1.1 THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND The increasing of urbanization, the development of technology and changing the way of living or people’s lifestyle are different from the past make natural resources such as forest and wildlife rapidly decreased and cause environmental issues such as flood, drought, air pollution, wastewater, biodiversity loss, wildlife extinction, etc. As the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report (2005) announced human activities caused some 10-30 % of the mammal, bird and amphibian species threatened with extinction which is a significant and enormously irreversible loss in diversity of life on Earth. As for Thailand, 6 species of wildlife are already extinct and about 116 species are classified to be threatening from the International Union for Conservation of Nature
In prehistoric times, natural disasters and competition with other species were the main causes. In historic times, overexploitation and exotic species introductions have caused many extinctions. Today, the main problems facing wildlife are destruction of habitat and pollution. All of these threats have put serious impacts on the diversity of species on Earth. Biodiversity loss is driven by local, global factors and human activities, so responses are also needed at all scales.
There are four main reasons for existence and dispersion of invasive species in the Mediterranean Sea. These are Atlantic inflow, lessepsian migration (i. e. species comes from Red Sea and Indian Ocean via Suez Canal), human mediated introduction and climate change (rising sea temperature). While the first three causes act as resources of alien species, climate change is like a mechanism favoring biological invasions (Bianchi, 1997). It is well known that physical conditions of the environment affect species’ distribution. In semi-enclosed seas like Mediterranean, it was predicted that sea bottom temperatures and sea surface temperatures increased faster than neighboring open sea temperatures (Cheung et al., 2009).