Adaptive radiation of Angiosperms (flowering plants) and mammals during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Angiosperms had existed since the mid-Jurassic or longer, but they began to replace ferns and gymnosperms after the Jurassic - Cretaceous boundary due to their freedom from standing water for fertilization, and their greater success at ecological relationships with pollinators. Mammals likewise had existed since the Cretaceous, but they rapidly diversified following the extinction of the dinosaurs and other reptiles at the end of the Cretaceous.

(after) Knoll, A.H. 1986. Patterns of change in plant communities through geological time. p. 126-141 IN Diamond, J., and Case, T.J. (eds.) Community Ecology. Harper and Row, New York. Lillegraven 1972. Ordinal and familial diversity in Cenozoic mammals. Taxon 21: 261-274. Ge Sun, David L. Dilcher, Shaoling Zheng, and Zhekun Zhou. 1988. In Search of the First Flower: A Jurassic Angiosperm, Archaefructus, from Northeast China Science 282: 1692-1695.