Cenozoic Era - The Age of Mammals Begins Flashcards
(25 cards)
Cenozoic Era is also known as?
Age of Mammals
A group of mammals (based on reproduction method) that are egg-laying
Monotremes
A group of mammals (based on reproduction method) that are commonly called the “pouched mammals”
Marsupials
A group of mammals (based on reproduction method) that comprised more than 90% of all mammals, fossils and extinct.
Placental Mammals
Placental mammals cover how many orders?
18 orders
An Order of mammals that eats insects
Insectivora
An Order of mammals that covers 40% of all living mammal species, most of which are very small animals. They eat almost anything.
Rodentia
An Order of mammals that resemble rodents but differ from them in several anatomic details. They have long and powerful hind limbs for speed.
Lagomorpha
An Order of mammals that have forelimbs modified into wings. Its oldest fossil comes from the Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming.
Chiroptera
An Order of mammals that are meat eaters. They have well-developed, sharp, pointed canine teeth and specialized shearing teeth for slicing meat.
Carnivora
The specialized shearing teeth of Order Carnivora are known as?
Carnassials
Large cats that have huge canines that existed throughout most of the Cenozoic Era and are well known from Pleistocene-age deposits
Saber-Tooth Cats
A group of living and extinct mammals that are particularly hoofed.
Ungulates
An order of even-toed hoofed mammals that are the most diverse and numerous with about 170 living species.
Artiodactyla
The first, second, and fifth toes of Order Artiodactyla have been lost or remained as ______________
Vestiges
Odd-toed hoofed mammals that have only 16 existing species.
Perissodactyla
The earliest member of the horse family and was fox-sized.
Hyracotherium or Eohippus
An Order of giant land-dwelling mammals
Proboscidea
What are the most familiar elephants other than the living ones?
Mastodons and Mammoths
An extinct elephant that evlved in Africa and spread over the Northern Hemisphere continents during the Miocene to Pleistocene.
Mastodons
They had the largest tusks of any elephant and diverged during the Pliocene and Pleistocene together with living elephants. They lived on all Northern Hemisphere continents, India, and Africa.
Mammoths
An Order of Mammals that are by far the largest animals alive today, such as the Blue Whale.
Cetacea
An Order of Mammals that includes Manatees, Dugongs, and the extinct Stellar’s Sea Cow
Sirenia
Some of the world’s best known fossils come from __________ Deposits
Pleistocene
