570 vanished lives

105Paleozoic

Crossbars projected from the spines of its tall sail above a broad plant-processing body.

121Paleozoic

Leafless stems only centimeters tall held spore capsules at their tips, marking an early step inland.

122Paleozoic

Naked upright axes rose from creeping rhizomes, preserved cell by cell by silica-rich hot springs.

123Paleozoic

It grew true wood and a tree crown but still reproduced by spores, helping create Earth's first broad forests.

124Paleozoic

A straight trunk patterned with diamond leaf scars forked only high above the Carboniferous mire.

125Paleozoic

Casts of jointed stems record large horsetail relatives; Calamites suckowii does not automatically name a plant with all organs known.

126Paleozoic

Woody stems carried immense fernlike fronds, yet seeds grew among the foliage of this vanished seed fern.

127Paleozoic

Tongue-shaped leaves across the southern continents became important evidence that Gondwana was once united.

137Paleozoic

Eyes sat at the ends of a crossbar and a long proboscis ended in a toothed grasping organ.

138Paleozoic

Paired bony bosses formed a rough crown on the skull of this large, probably plant-eating therapsid.

141Paleozoic

Leafless axes rose in stands from creeping stems; conducting cells were present, but true vascular tissue was not.

142Paleozoic

Short axes carried forked sporangia above corm-like bases that could resprout on a repeatedly flooded hot-spring surface.

143Paleozoic

Veinless leaf-like flaps covered its axes, while star-shaped xylem supplied shoots that rose nearly half a meter.

144Paleozoic

Branches more than a meter long carried dense narrow microphylls, far more elaborate than most naked-stemmed plants of its age.

145Paleozoic

Naked axes forked repeatedly, their fertile tips curling inward and carrying paired elongated sporangia.

146Paleozoic

Two rows of kidney-shaped sporangia lined curved branch tips like the teeth of an unfinished botanical zipper.

147Paleozoic

Vertical rows of leaf scars stamped the tall trunk, beneath a crown of sparse branches and grasslike microphylls.

148Paleozoic

Rounded pinnules carried fanlike veins and looked fernlike, yet immense seeds grew among the fronds.

149Paleozoic

Clusters of long strap-shaped leaves crowned woody trees from an extinct gymnosperm lineage near early conifers.

150Paleozoic

Six wedge-shaped leaves encircled each node of a slender stem that trailed across the ground or climbed larger trees.

165Paleozoic

Two pairs of curved head spines, long antennae and dozens of fine legs made this two-centimeter arthropod exquisitely elaborate.

166Paleozoic

Its stout body hid in a U-shaped burrow while a spiny, hook-studded throat could turn inside out to seize food.

167Paleozoic

A broad head shield enclosed its front half, with forward-set eyes and a flexible tail behind the armored box.

168Paleozoic

This giant lobe-finned predator used fanglike teeth to ambush prey, while its fin skeleton followed a tetrapod-like pattern.