No student of the history life on earth will deny that the coming of the reptiles was one of the great events. As the first truly terrestrial vertebrates, the early reptiles not only filled out the faunal picture for their own time in arresting ways, but they also set the stage for later dramatic happenings like the rise of the dinosaurs, the beginnings of birds and the age-long evolution of the mammal line.
The reptiles went ashore during the Permian, more than 250 million years ago. There was growing opportunity in the Permian land, and by a surprising twist of history, the reptile ancestors had already evolved equipment to take advantage of the opportunity and become the first terrestrial pioneers. During the time of the coal forests, land vegetation had become well developed. Ferns, seed ferns and their kin covered the low-lying land, the energy of the sun was being caught by chlorophyll, insects had made their appearance and food was wasting on the shore. It was almost certainly the insects as a source of animal food that attracted the reptile ancestors living harassed lives at the rim of the land. If one had to work out this bit of paleontology by logic, one would probably do it this way: the insects were there, vertebrate life was under competitive and predatory pressure in the sea, so some of the shallow-water vertebrates, seeking food and refuge ashore, gradually acquired legs, lungs, scales and the shelled egg, and thus developed at last into land reptiles which were able to forage for insects in the forest.
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