Page 48 - The Dinosaur Book and Other Wonders of the Prehistoric World (DK-Smithsonian)

Arthropod empire

Rock formed from
The complex compound eyes fine-grained mud has
with many lenses were just like preserved the wings of
those of modern adult insects. this early dragonfly.

Tupus fossil

Each wing was
a thin plate of
plasticlike chitin,
stiffened by struts
called veins.
The
first flying
insects took
to the air at least
250 million years
Cyclophthalmus fossil Meganeura
before the first
birds.

Meganeura The jointed legs of an
may have had extinct type of scorpion are
a colorful tail. clearly visible in this fossil
found in central Europe.

Forests of towering trees and other the fossilized land animals of this period were
plants spread over the land from about arthropods—creatures with tough external
358–299 million years ago, providing food skeletons and jointed legs, like today’s insects,
for many small plant-eating animals. They spiders and crustaceans. They included early
included soft-bodied animals like worms, whose millipedes like Euphoberia, and plant-eating
46 burrows have been found fossilized. But most of insects like Archimylacris—a type of

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