The Early Cenozoic Era, in the Paleogene period, was characterized by whales learning to swim after evolving from carivorous land mammals, huge sharks including Carcharadon megalodon, corals diversifying and taking over reef building, sand dollars and burrowing bivalves moving to shallow shorelines, early penguins & pinnipeds, shrinking forests, spreading grasslands and deserts, ungulate herbivorous grazers who diversified along with the grasses, and of course many other mammal groups as the Cenozoic is nicknamed the "Age of Mammals". These mammal groups that evolved in the Paleogene include bats, primates, even toed ungulates, odd toed ungulates, uranotheria, rodents, & large carnivores land predators like a 6 foot tall doghyena hybrid called Andrewsarcus and the first sabertooth cats. Lastly, the birds whether flightless or flying were huge! One called diatrymas carried out the dinosaurs legacy as a huge flightless land predator, but thankfully those went extinct in the Eocene. ;)

References: Earth System History: https://amzn.to/3v1Iy0G

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Nontextbook books I recommend:
Oxygen by D. Canfield: https://amzn.to/3gffbCL
Brief history of Earth by A. Knoll: https://amzn.to/3w3hC1I
Life on young planet by A. Knoll: https://amzn.to/2RBMpny
Some assembly required by N. Shubin: https://amzn.to/3w1Ezm2
Your inner fish by N. Shubin: https://amzn.to/3cpw3Wb
Oxygen by N. Lane: https://amzn.to/3z4FgwZ
Alien Oceans by K. Hand: https://amzn.to/3clMx1l
Life's Engines: https://amzn.to/3w1Nhke

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0:00 Major events in the Paleogene
2:06 Coral reefs after KPg extinction
3:39 Whales used to walk?
4:55 Megalodon sharks are real?
5:30 Sand dollars took over beaches
6:14 Penguins & Pinnipeds evolved
6:51 Climate change diminished forests
7:49 Grasses changed Earth forever!
8:58 Why Cenozoic is Age of Mammals
10:50 Bats evolved
12:02 Primates evolved
12:56 Ungulates evolved
14:16 Ungulates horses became modernized
15:02 Ungulates rhinos were largest land mammals
15:49 Rodents evolved
16:51 Carnivorous mammals evolved
18:18 All Birds were huge & terrifying
19:59 Related videos & references

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