What were the pre existing animals of the Cenozoic?

Answer 1

Animals in the ocean that lived in the Cenozoic period were sponges, coral, starfish, sea urchens, and sand dollars were common as well as brachiopods and cephalopods which were rare. Even oysters, mussels, and snails lived through out the period. Crabs and barnacles were common as well. On land, Spiders, centipedes, scorpions, and insects, including butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, ants, beetles, and many others thrived during the Cenozoic era as well.

Answer 2

During the Cenozoic, a diverse collection of terrestrial, marine, and flying animals were abundant thus the period was called, the Age of Mammals even though birds still outnumbered mammals two to one. There were snakes, rodents, gastornid birds (large and flightless), terrestrial crocodiles, large mammal groups like uintatheres (like a rhio/hippo like mammal), mesonychids (like a large wolf but different), and pantodonts. As the forests began to recede later in the age and the climate began to cool, other mammals took over such as chalicotheres (a giant sloth-like creature), creodonts (large cats, bears), whales, primates, entelodonts (gigantic pigs), saber-toothed cats, mastodons (large elephants) and mammoths (even larger elephants), three-toed horses, the giant rhinoceros like Indricotherium (no horn), and brontotheres (large rhino with horn).

Answer 3

The Cenozoic Era is also known as the Age of Mammals because the extinction of many groups of giant mammals, allowing smaller species to thrive and diversify because their predators no longer existed. Due to the large span of time covered by the period, it is beneficial to discuss the animal population by the milestone of the era rather than in generalities.

The beginning of the Paleogene Period was a time for the mammals that survived from the Cretaceous Period. Later in this period, rodents and small horses, such as Hyracotherium, are common and rhinoceroses and elephants appear. As the period ends, dogs, cats and pigs become commonplace. Other than a few birds that were classified as dinosaurs, most notable the Titanis, the dinosaurs were gone. Large Flightless Birds, such as the Diatryma, thrived.

The Neogene Period gives rise to early primates, including early humans. Bovids, including cattle, sheep, goats, antelope and gazelle, flourish during this period.

Cave lions, Sabre-toothed cats, cave bears, giant deer, woolly rhinoceroses, and woolly mammoths were prevailing species of the Quaternary Period.

Without the dinosaurs, plant life had an opportunity to flourish during the Cenozoic Era. Nearly every plant living today had its roots in the Cenozoic Era. During the early part of the era, forests overran most of North America. However, as the climate cooled forests died off, creating open land.

Due to the widening of the oceans,sharks, whales and other marine life proliferated. The Great Lakes that formed in the western United States during the Eocene Epoch were the perfect home for bass, trout and other fresh-water species.

As the forests thinned, grasses began to spread out over the plains of North America and savannas covered the land in the middle of the continent. Among the common plant life were pines, mosses, oaks and grasses. Flowering plants and edible crops dominate the landscape in the later part of this era as humans cultivate the land.

United Nations Farms

Answer 4

Anything that is alive now, because we are in it!

Answer 5

Sabre-toothed cats, cave lions, cave bears, giant deer, woolly rhinoceroses, woolly mammoths, the giant ground sloth, megalodon

Answer 6

mamals and small birds