Vast sheets of ice cover Gondwanaland. In the oceans coral reefs and invertebrate life flourish, with groups such as brachiopods, echinoderms, ammonites, bryozoa, and corals diversify and are common. Among brachiopods , Productids , Spiriferids and Rhynchonellids are abundant. Terebratulids are also very common. Nautiloid cephalopods are represented by tightly coiled nautilids , with straight shelled and curved shelled forms becoming increasingly rare.
Trilobites are rare, represented only by the proetids.
On land, especially in the Euramerican part of Pangea, the equatorial regions are covered by forests. The drier uplands were much more sparsely covered. Meanwhile, Gondwanaland , with its colder antarctic climate, has its own very distinct flora, dominated by Glossopterid pteridosperms. So vigorous is the growth of these ancient trees that they seemed to have sucked much of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, producing a surfeit of oxygen . Oxygen levels were higher during this time than at any other time in the history of the Earth Inhabiting the great forests were many types of insects , spiders, and other types of arthropods evolve.