Paleozoic

The **Paleozoic Era** is a geological time period on Earth. It began following the Elder Days, approximately 542 million years ago, and lasted until the beginning of the Age of Reptiles, about 248 million years ago.

## Cambrian Period

### 542 MYA - 488 MYA

> From this point onward, there should be enough oxygen to breathe without special equipment. The bad news is that there still isn't much to see that isn't underwater.
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**530 MYA** The Cambrian Explosion--the most significant diversification of life in Earth's history. First chordates evolve, ancestors of most time travelers.

**526 MYA** Trilobites evolve.

**515** Evolution of the Anomalocarids, the first creatures produced by Earth that are big enough to eat a time traveler.

**510 MYA** Gondwana emerges--bringing together the tectonic plates that will later become the southern continents.

**500 MYA** First jawless fish. First coral reefs.

**505 MYA** Burgess Shale formed--British Columbia.

## Ordovician Period

### 488 MYA - 438 MYA

> The **Age of Cephalopods**--why did that never really catch on? Watch out--some of the orthocones (the long pointy kind) can get pretty grabby.
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**455 MYA** The star Vega is formed.

**450 MYA** First land plants.

**460 MYA** Beginning of a 40-million-year ice age.

## Silurian Period

### 438 to 408 MYA

> You particularly want to look out for the giant sea scorpions, though the first sharks and armored fish can get you too. The land is colonized by small vascular plants--moss, basically--and millipedes.
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**420 MYA** End of ice age. First sharks.

## Devonian Period

### 408 to 360 MYA

> The **Age of Fishes**--both armored and the regular kind, including sharks. Aquatic amphibians also evolve. Forests of clubmosses, horsetails and ferns appear on land, along with the first insects.
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**400 MYA** Great Race of Yith, which can transfer its intellects across time and space, arrives on Earth, inhabiting the bodies of large cone-shaped creatures. They build the city of Pnakotus in what is now Western Australia, where they write the *Pnakotic Manuscripts*, the world's oldest surviving text.

Evolution of Dunkleosteus, one of the largest and most vicious armored fish.

## Carboniferous

### 360 to 280 MYA

> The **Age of Amphibians**, living in the great coal swamps (future coal, that is)--along with giant cockroaches and other creepy-crawlies. Even the giant sea scorpions are amphibious now.
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The first half of the period is known as the Mississippian; in the second half, called Pennsylvanian, giant dragonflies appear, along with the first reptiles.

**350 MYA** Rise of R’lyeh; arrival of Cthulhu.

**300 MYA** Sinking of R'lyeh; imprisonment of Cthulhu.

## Permian Period

### 280 to 248 MYA

> This would certainly be called the **Age of Reptiles** if that phrase weren't trademarked by the Mesozoic Era. Still, there are a lot of huge, weird-looking reptiles around that never made it into your childhood toy box. And they WILL eat you.
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**286 MYA** Landmasses unite into the supercontinent Pangaea, creating the Appalachian Mountains. End of Permo-Carboniferous glaciation.

**280 MYA** Dimetrodon evolves. He's more closely related to us than to T. Rex--but try telling him that.

**275 MYA** Rise of Serpent People of Valusia--otherwise known as Sleestaks.

**270 MYA** First gingko trees.

**260 MYA** Siberia collides with Proto-Europe, creating the Ural Mountains and completing the formation of Pangaea.

**250 MYA** Cynodonts--mammal-like reptiles--evolve. First crocodiles. Shoggoths rebel against Old Ones.

**248 MYA** Permian Extinction Event. 95 percent of life on Earth becomes extinct, including trilobites.

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*Here Be Dragons is a synthesis of fact and fiction. Do not rely on it as a factual reference!*