Region

Americas

Tiktaalik: The Fish That Took the First Steps Toward Land

Tiktaalik became the best-known transitional fossil between fish and tetrapods, showing how fins began to evolve into limbs.

c. 375 million years ago · 8 min read

The largest known land arthropod lived for over 50 million years before dying out in the early Permian.

c. 345–290 Ma · 6 min read

Dimetrodon was a top land predator of the early Permian and is now a key fossil for understanding the early evolution of the mammal lineage.

c. 295–272 Ma · 6 min read

One of the richest dinosaur fossil sites known, protected as a provincial park in 1955 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

c. 76 million years ago · 5 min read

A global mass extinction wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs and around three-quarters of plant and animal species, ending the Cretaceous Period.

c. 66 million years ago · 8 min read

Fossils from the Cerrejón Formation revealed the largest snake known from good fossil remains, estimated at around 13 metres and over a tonne.

c. 60-58 million years ago · 5 min read

Hundreds of complete skeletons of rhinos, horses, camels and birds, killed by ash from a Yellowstone hotspot eruption, are preserved where they died.

c. 12 million years ago · 4 min read

The land bridge allowed hundreds of species to spread between the Americas, reshaping the wildlife of both continents, especially South America.

major pulse c. 2.7 million years ago · 6 min read

Smilodon became one of the top predators of the Americas before dying out at the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago.

c. 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago · 6 min read

Rancho La Brea became one of the richest Ice Age fossil sites in the world, with millions of specimens from more than 600 species.

c. 50,000 years ago to present · 8 min read

Rising seas flooded the land bridge by about 11,000 years ago, after the ancestors of Native Americans had crossed into the Americas.

c. 26,000–11,000 years ago · 6 min read

Humans spread from Beringia throughout the Americas before the end of the last Ice Age, reaching southern Chile by about 14,500 years ago.

by c. 23,000–21,000 years ago · 8 min read