Just looking at The Beginning of the Age of Mammals by Kenneth Rose, with its Henri Rousseau-style jacket picture, catapults the reader right into enchanted Early Eocene life. The book is a scholarly treatment of an important period in the evolution of mammals. Mammals originated some 225 million years ago, and for about 160 million years they were small nocturnal creatures living in the shadow of the dinosaurs. Most of them would have been size of a shrew or rat, with only a few being as big as a fox. When the dinosaurs died out at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago, mammals changed lifestyle and started to increase their size, with many entering niches abandoned by the extinct giants. This was the age of mammals.
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