Evolution Timeline

By kayla shep
  • 4500 BCE

    Precambrian - Origin of primitive life.

    Eukaryotes.
  • 3800 BCE

    Precambrian - Origin of primitive life.

    Eukaryotes evolve.
  • 2500 BCE

    Precambrian - Simple organisms Eukaryotes evolve, diversify in the sea.

    Eukaryotes evolve.
  • 600 BCE

    Cambrian - Age of invertebrates.

    Evolution of invertebrates with hard skeletons. Dominance of trilobites.
  • 560 BCE

    Ordovician - Age of invertebrates.

    Diverse marine communities: branchiopods, bryozoans, corals, graptolites, nautiloids first jawless fishes.
  • 425 BCE

    Silurian - Age of fishes.

    Oldest life on land: plants, scorpions first jawed fishes.
  • 405 BCE

    Devonian - Age of fishes

    Oldest land vertebrates, radiation of land plants, corals brachiopods and echinoderms.
  • 345 BCE

    Carboniferous - Age of amphibians.

    Coal swamp forests, amphibians on land, first reptiles, Algal sponge reefs, Echinoderms and bryozoans dominant.
  • 250 BCE

    Permian - Age of reptiles.

    Extinction if trilobites and many invertebrates, reptiles more abundant as amphibians dominant.
  • 230 BCE

    Triassic - Age of reptiles.

    Dominance of mammal-like reptiles, Dominance of ammonites.
  • 181 BCE

    Jurassic - Age of reptiles.

    Cycads, conifers, ginkgoes, dinosaurs dominant, first birds, flying reptiles, marine reptiles.
  • 135 BCE

    Cretaceous - Age of reptiles.

    First flowering plants, extinction of ammonites, marine and aerial reptiles.
  • 65 BCE

    Paleogene - Age of mammals.

    Extensive radiation of flowering plants and mammals, dominance of gastropods.
  • 12 BCE

    Neogene - Age of mammals.

    Extensive radiation of flowering plants and mammals, dominance of gastropods.
  • 2 BCE

    Quaternary - Age of mammals.

    Humans expand in range, major ice ages and extinction of large animals in the northern hemisphere