The Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution
Flowers, insects, birds and mammals diversify together in a single tangled explosion.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 45 million years
- Known to
- ± 10 million years
- Era
- Cretaceous, Mesozoic
From roughly 125 million years ago the spread of angiosperms sets off a cascade through the ecosystems that depend on them. Pollinating insects diversify alongside the flowers they service; herbivores adapt to a new and more nutritious kind of foliage; the predators and parasites of those herbivores follow. Birds, mammals, ants, bees, butterflies and flowering plants all show major radiations across this interval. Whether the plants drove the animals or the two accelerated each other is still argued, but modern terrestrial biodiversity is largely assembled here.