T
his chapter examines the evolution of the amphibians in the great
coal swamps of the Carboniferous period and follows the building of
the great supercontinent Pangaea. The Carboniferous, from 345 to
280 million years ago, was named for the coal-bearing rocks of Wales, Great
Britain. It is further divided into the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian peri-
ods in North America. Flora that appeared in the Devonian was plentiful and
varied during the Carboniferous. Great coal forests of seed ferns and true
trees with seeds and woody trunks spread across Gondwana and Laurasia in
the lower Carboniferous.
All forms of marine fauna that existed in the lower Paleozoic flourished
in the Carboniferous except the brachiopods, which declined in number and
types. The fusulinids appeared for the first time in the Carboniferous. They
were large, complex protozoans that resembled grains of wheat and ranged
from microscopic size up to 3 inches in length. Primitive amphibians inhab-
ited the swampy forests, which were abuzz with hundreds of different types of
insects,including large cockroaches and giant dragonflies. When the climate
grew colder and widespread glaciation enveloped the southern continents at
CARBONIFEROUS
AMPHIBIANS
THE AGE OF FOREST DENIZENS