Researchers from the UK, Egypt and the United States have shown that the transition from Eocene to Oligocene about 30 million years ago was also accompanied by a mass extinction of mammals in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. An article of paleontologists about a previously unknown disappearance of species was published in the Communications Biology magazine.
The offensive of oligocene 33 million years ago was accompanied by a sharp grinding climate, expanding the area of glacial shields and a decrease in the content in the air of carbon dioxide. About two thirds of species who lived in Europe and Asia were extinct. However, it was believed that in Africa because of its relative proximity to the equator, most mammalian species managed to remain unaffected and survive Eocene oligocene extinction.
Researchers from the University of Duke Analyzed the fossil fossils of the five groups of mammals who lived in Africa: two groups of rodents, sovereign and historic shirts (including excavation and dictates), hyenodonov and two groups of primates – semi-esshynes and higher primates. Scientists built the phylogenetic trees for these groups, for which you can reveal when one or another genus, as well as the time for the appearance and extinction of individual species.
It turned out that about 30 million years ago, 63 percent of mammalian species died out in Africa. A few million years later, new species began to appear in the fossil chronicles, but their diet and habitat, judging by the changed tooth, changed dramatically.