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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mythusmage" data-source="post: 1952389" data-attributes="member: 571">The Coming of the DragonsThe end of the Permian, on both versions of Earth, was marked by the worst mass extinction modern science knows of. On Dragon Earth it is said that a time-probe managed to go back some 3 billion years to the introduction of mass quanities of oxygen in the atmosphere, but that feat has not yet been verified.As with our world Dragon Earth's Permian Age ended with the extinction of approximately 90% of all known marine species, and some 80% of all known terrestrial life forms. Phylums disappeared.The once dominant therapsids (mammal-like reptiles) were largely wiped out, with a few exceptions. They would be replaced by a pair of new orders, descended from an heterogeneous group known as the Thecodonts.These two orders, the Saurischia and the Ornithischia, would become known to us as the Dinosaurs. In our case two more orders would arise, the crocodilians and the lizards and snakes. On Dragon Earth a 5th (and a 6th, when the oriental dragons get added to the SRD) order arose from the thecodonts; Dracos, the dragon.The early Dracos were small, lizard like animals. Unable to compete against the early Dinosaurs they took up residence in the primitive trees. There they became agile little beasts, evolving an erect stance, much as the early advanced mammal-like reptiles were doing on the forest floor. However, by the Late Triassic they were facing new competition .By this time the mammals had appeared. The first being the triconodonts, followed by the multituburculates, the marsupials, and the placentals. (On Dragon Earth the monotremes are considered descendents of an, as yet, undiscovered mammalian order that might be descended from the triconodonts. At the same time, there are those who say the monotremes are descended from a late mammal-like reptile animal, and should be considered mama-like reptiles themselves.) One of the oldest placental groups are the primates. who moved into the trees late in the Late Triassic. Where they might have driven Dracos into extinction had not a big change taken place in that group.What that change was will have to wait for the next post.</blockquote>

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