Cenozoic

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The Cenozoic Era (also known as the Caenozoic, Kainozoic, or Neozoic Era; ; SEE-nə-ZOH-ik, SEN-ə-; lit. 'new life') is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66 million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon, preceded by the Mesozoic and Paleozoic. The Cenozoic started with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, when many species, including the non-avian dinosaurs, became extinct in an event attributed by most experts to the impact of a large asteroid or other celestial body, the Chicxulub impactor. The Cenozoic is commonly known as the Age of Mammals because the terrestrial animals that dominated both hemispheres were mammals –the eutherians (placentals) in the Northern Hemisphere and the metatherians (marsupials, now mainly restricted to Australia and to some extent South America) in the Southern Hemisphere. The extinction...

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