The fossils in this exhibit span many hundreds of millions of years. Scroll down to travel back through time.
Shape Matters
Carpolestids were a group of early primate relatives with distinctive blade-like lower fourth premolars that lived in the warm temperate Paleocene forests of North America. A new species, Carpolestes twelvemilensis, described in 2018, was used to study the evolution of this specialized tooth.
Petrified Forests of Antarctica: A Climate Change Story
Ancient forests underwent major changes in non-flowering seed plants as the warm, humid climate became drier and cooler. Permian forests were dominated by similar looking glossopterid species. Millions of years later, during the Triassic, new groups of seed-bearing plants evolved with a greater diversity in appearance.
500 Million Year Old Animals: Familiar Faces and Unique Forms
Cambrian life included most major animal groups and others with no living relatives. Understanding their relationships is challenging due to the diversity of body forms within groups. For example, snails, squids and clams are all mollusks.