Carboniferous period

A scientific illustration of life in the Late Carboniferous Period.

See photos and illustrations of the Carboniferous period from National Geographic.

Carboniferous landscape. Artwork of a typical swampy landscape during the Carboniferous period, which lasted from around 360 to 300 million years ago.

Art illustration - Prehistoric Insects - Meganeura: ( "large nerves") is an extinct genus of insects protodonatos Meganeuridae family. Among its species is Meganeura monyi, a kindred with current dragonflies insect, who lived in the Carboniferous period (300 Ma ago). With a wingspan of over 75 cm, it is the largest known species of insects that ever existed on Earth.

Carboniferous period

Illustration by Zdenek Burian, 1967 "Life Before Man," 1995

Imagine swamp. Saturate the air and fumes of rotting leaves. Strange sounds of various insects crawling on the forest floor . Water gurgli... Carboniferous period

A newly discovered report of Mauritius wildlife written by an early Dutch settler describes the island nation's now-extinct indigenous animals.

Among the giant plants in the Carboniferous forests were Cordaites, an early relative of conifers; Calamites, a bushy horsetail; Medullosa,a seed fern (a plant with seeds and fern-like leaves); Psaronius, a tree fern; and Paralycopodites and Lepidophloios, lycopsids (scaly, pole-like trees with cones). Lepidophloios could grow to 40 m (132 ft), but most of today’s lycopsids, known as quillworts and club mosses, grow only a few centimeters high.