Exam 18: Life of the Cenozoic Era

Where were marsupials most abundant during the Cenozoic Era? What has been their fate thus far?

What is an evolutionary trend in hoofed animals in which premolars become more like molars, giving the animals a continuous series of grinding teeth?

Yellowstone National Park had a subtropical climate in the Eocene.

Any cud-chewing placental mammal with a complex three- or four-chambered stomach, such as deer, cattle, antelope, or camels is a(n) ____.

Placental and marsupial mammals differ from monotremes in that ____.

Unlike Cenozoic mammals, mammals of the Mesozoic were uniformly small.

Because of their high metabolism, small mammals retain heat more effectively than large mammals.

Discuss the development of mammals of the order Carnivora.

After the Isthmus of Panama formed, marsupials invaded North America and were very successful.

Bats are the only reptiles presently capable of flight.

Any animal that eats low-growing vegetation, especially grasses, is a(n) ____.

One distinction between browsers and grazers is that grazers have high crowned teeth.

Any animal that eats tender shoots, twigs, and leaves is a(n) ____.

Why are fossils of carnivores less common than fossils of other animals?

Cynodonts were mammal-like reptiles and considered to be ancestors of the true mammals.

The oldest known fossil ____________________, the only flying mammal, is from rocks of Eocene age.

From which time period would you expect the most abundant and best preserved fossils?

All mammals are vertebrates.

Forests gave way to grasslands and prairies following a general decrease in precipitation 25 million years ago in the midcontinent region of North America.

Human hunting during the Late Pleistocene may have caused the extinction of some large mammals.