Page 160 - The Dinosaur Book and Other Wonders of the Prehistoric World (DK-Smithsonian)

Life in

Mesozoic seas

The marine world

This giant fish had
meshlike plates at
the back of its mouth
for sifting tiny drifting
animals from the water.

This crab lived in
The shell warm, shallow seas about Ammonite
was more than 80 million years ago.
2 in (5 cm) across.

Leedsichthys LARGEST FISH The coiled shell protected

the ammonite’s soft body.
Crab fossil

Leedsichthys
54 ft (16.5 m)
Longer than a school
bus, and with a weight
to match, Leedsichthys
This fossil shows the protective was one of the largest
spiral shell made of hard, chalky fish that has ever lived. Bus 36 ft (11 m)
minerals absorbed from seawater.
Sea snail fossil

The Paleozoic Era—the age of ancient of the Mesozoic age of dinosaurs—the oceans
life—ended 251 million years ago with would have been almost lifeless. But some
a devastating mass extinction of life. This animals survived and started to multiply, taking
event was so extreme that it destroyed about advantage of all the empty space. It took about
96 percent of all marine species. During the 5 million years for the real recovery to begin,
158 centuries that followed—the earliest years as the surviving marine animals evolved into

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