Dominant oganisms in the Cenozoic era?

Answer 1

The Cenozoic Era started 65.5 million years ago and still is the current era.

It is widely recognised as the era of the mammal but this is a very simplistic view.

For several million years after the KT-Event the most dominant animals where the Terror Birds. In South America this dominance only ended about 2 million years ago soon after it joined with North America and species of saber toothed cats took over.

From as long ago as 45 million years ago mammals such as Andrewsarchus on land and Basilosaurus in the oceans had come to dominate most environments on Earth.

One major exception to mammalian domination is flying animals. The sky during the Cenozoic has been mainly dominated by the decedents of dinosaurs, the birds.

Other smaller environments such as the everglades in southern Florida the dominant animals are the Reptilian Alligators.

One mammal however has become the most dominant species on earth, Human Beings. Starting from about 200,000 years we started to slowly dominate Africa and about 70,000 years ago we started to colonise the rest of the planet. We now are the most dominant species in every environment.