Extinction

by Douglas H Erwin

The story of life is not just that of new things appearing but it’s also a story of animals and plants becoming extinct at certain episodes. Many people know about the death of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, but the biggest dying of all was at the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago, when life really did nearly die out completely. More than 90 per cent of species became extinct at that time.