Savanna spreads across the tropics
Grass, fire and scattered trees become one of the largest biomes on Earth.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 2.8 million years
- Known to
- ± 500 thousand years
- Era
- Pliocene, Cenozoic
The C4 grassland expansion that began in the Miocene reaches its full extent in the Pliocene, and tropical savanna — grass with scattered fire-tolerant trees — covers large parts of Africa, South America, India and Australia. Fire becomes a structuring ecological force rather than an occasional disturbance, because grass cures to fuel every dry season and most trees do not survive frequent burning. The grazing mammal communities of the modern world, and the hominins that lived among them, are products of this biome.