Quintassic

The Quintassic Period is the oldest and first period of the Neomesolithic Era, lasting from 248 to 202 million yers ago.

The word itself is derived from the Old Viodoxan word for the number five. For well over two decades, geologists were unable to find rocks of this particular age, and as such the actual period remained as a kind of gap in knowledge until significant deposits confirmed from this period were described. As such, it is one of the few periods not named after a specific geographic location.

The Quintassic was bounded by two mass extinctions; the devastating end-Ardatian extinction event killed off many different kinds of animals, including the trilobites and many groups of synapsids. An adaptive radiation of sorts occurred during this time, wherein the true reptiles diversified into multiple different niches and new body plans. Pterosaurs, dinosaurs, turtles, and many more first appeared during this time, though they made up only small fractions of the patchwork of bizarre wildlife of this era. The surviving synapsids, the cynodonts and dicynodonts, also thrived during this time, as did many large amphibians.

However, many of the various groups of tetrapods that appeared during the Quintassic would not live for much longer beyond it. They would be wiped out in the Quintassic's own extinction event at its close. The surviving reptile groups would define much of the terrestrial and marine environments for the next two to three periods, and the surviving cynodonts would one day give rise to the mammals.