Subhyracodon Skull Bottom View
The Great Plains Provide Habitat
The Great Plains were just beginning to develop. Dense woodlands were giving way to wooded grasslands. The climate became cooler and drier for a long period transforming the vegetation of the Earth to something far more like that of today. These changing environments had a dramatic effect on the lives of mammals around the world.
Time of the Mammals
Mammals, which blossomed with the disappearance of the dinosaurs, were expanding both in range and variety as land bridges between the continents allowed them to invade new territory. Here in South Dakota the Great Plains was a rich environment where many animals, ones we would identify as quite unusual, lived their lives.
