The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us – A Bestselling Book on the Natural History of Mammalian Evolution

It comes down to this: if our human species had not spread around the world, then a lot of the megafauna would still be here. Maybe not all of them, but probably most. Dinosaurs like T. rex and Triceratops were felled by an asteroid. For mammoths and saber-tooths, we were the asteroid.

As it stands, we should be thankful that the platypus and echidna remain—the zoological equivalents of the old couple who refuse to give up their apartment as their neighborhood gentrifies around them.

Natural selection doesn't plan for the future, it only works in the present, to adapt organisms to their immediate circumstances.

Not so at Ashfall Fossil Beds. The Yellowstone supervolcano, in all its destruction, froze into place a snapshot of a Miocene-aged community.

could extend and flex in a fore-aft direction

Classification is a human exercise. Nature doesn't put labels on things.

Then, about 34 million years ago, as the Eocene transitioned to the Oligocene, the world turned. The hothouse flipped to a coolhouse, which would eventually become an icehouse. The