From the Ordovician period to present day where we may be experiencing a sixth mass extinction, here are the mass extinctions that repeatedly wiped out life on Earth.
Synapsids, such as this dinogorgon from South Africa’s Karoo Basin, were nearly wiped out 251 million years ago during the End-Permian mass extinction. Congratulations, you’re part of the 1 percent. That is, the 1 percent of species on Earth not yet extinct: For the last 3.5 billion or so years, about 99 percent of the estimated 4 billion species that ever evolved are no longer around.
Each mass extinction ended a geologic period — that’s why researchers refer to them by names such as End-Cretaceous. But it’s not all bad news: Mass extinctions topple ecological hierarchies, and in that vacuum, surviving species often thrive, exploding in diversity and territory.Trilobites got their start more than 520 million years ago, but faced their first decline during the End-Ordovician mass extinction.
The End-Cretaceous mass extinction event claimed nearly all the dinosaurs, including the iconic T. rex. Only one lineage, now known as birds, survived. The cause of the End-Cretaceous extinction remains hotly debated. No one disputes that a chunk of space rock slammed into the planet near Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula at the time. But researchers disagree on whether the asteroid strike caused or merely contributed to the die-off.
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