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The name Cenozoic (Greek, "recent life") was first proposed (1841) by John Phillips for that part of geologic time extending from the end of the Mesozoic Era, about 65 million years ago, to the present. In North America, the era is divided into the Tertiary Period (duration, 62 million years) and the more recent Quaternary Period (duration, 2.5 million years), whereas in Europe, geologists prefer dividing it into the Paleogene (duration, 39 million years) and the Neogene (duration, 25.5 million years) periods.
The Cenozoic is the most recent of the three major subdivisions of animal history. The Cenozoic spans only about 65 million years, from the end of the Cretaceous Period, one of the last periods of the Mesozoic Era, and the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs to the present. The Cenozoic is also referred as the Age of Mammals, because the largest land animals have been mammals during that time. However this could also be turned around. The Cenozoic could have been called the "Age of Flowering Plants" or the "Age of Insects" or the "Age of Teleost Fish" or the "Age of Birds" just as accurately. The history of mammals began long before the Cenozoic Era, also the diversity of life during the Cenozoic is far wider than just mammals.
Life
Angiosperms, 83 to 90 percent of modern floras, gradually supplanted the dominant conifers of the late Mesozoic Era. As angiosperms evolved, so did mammals and birds. Mammals became differentiated into carnivores, rodents, hoofed animals, and primates. In late Tertiary and early Quaternary times, humanlike forms (hominids) first appeared.
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