What lived on Pangaea? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

Pangea formed about 270 million years ago and started to break apart about 200 millions years ago. But all of this happened gradually — large chunks remained joined for another 100 million years, so you can make different arguments about what time period can be included in the question about what lived on Pangea. Generally speaking, you can say Pangea formed at the end of the Paleozoic Era and had broken apart into what would become our modern continents by the end of the Mesozoic.

During the Paleozoic, a huge variety of sea life (plant, animal, bacteria, etc.) lived in shallow waters at the edge of the early continents. By the time Pangea formed, during the Permian Period, those shallow seas were greatly diminished. This represented a drastic change in climate for the life forms that flourished in those warm shallows.

Life was forced to adapt to new conditions. One of the ways it did that was to evolve egg shells that could withstand dry conditions. Amphibians evolved the ability to spend at least part of their lives out of water, but they still needed to lay eggs in water. It was the reptiles that rocked the joint with their egg shells and skins that could withstand dry conditions. Birds and mammals were poised to dominate the landscape with their useful adaptations as conditions changed yet again when Pangea was breaking up.

So life, which started out in warm shallow waters, spread to every sort of habitat on Pangea. It continued to flourish in the ocean, but also in lakes, ponds, rivers, caves, etc. Life on dry land included bacteria, fungi, plants, insects, amphibians, reptiles, saurians, the early mammals, and the first birds. All of this variety evolved over hundreds of millions of years (technically billions if you count the earliest life forms). It continues to evolve today, as our general climate becomes warmer and drier.

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