Page 172 - The Dinosaur Book and Other Wonders of the Prehistoric World (DK-Smithsonian)
P. 172
A new world
The dawn redwood is almost
identical to conifers that lived 150 Dawn redwood leaves
The rise of mammals Butterfly fossil
million years ago, which provided
food for giant dinosaurs.
This nectar-feeding butterfly
was found fossilized in rocks more
than 50 million years old.
Seeds are
contained in
Plane tree leaf fossil
scaly cones.
Still thriving today, magnolia
flowers first blossomed more than
130 million years ago.
Many fossilized
leaves are like
living ones.
Magnolia
About 20 million years ago,
this bee was sipping nectar and
carrying pollen just like a
modern honeybee.
Bee fossil
During most of the Mesozoic age of 140 million years ago. Most of their flowers were
dinosaurs there were no colorful, fragrant small and pollinated by the wind, like grass
flowers to attract insects. The plant world flowers. But by about 100 million years ago
was dominated by the green leaves of ferns, many had big, vibrant flowers like those of early
palmlike cycads, and conifer trees. The earliest magnolias and Archaeanthus, and by the time
170 known flowering plants date from about the dinosaurs were wiped out, the world had
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