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| c. 150 million years ago |
| | | Archaeopteryx has the skeletal structure of a dinosaur and the feathers of a bird, intermediate between the two species | | 
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| c. 125 million years ago |
| | | Primitive birds begin to feature in the fossil record | |
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| c. 65 million years ago |
| | | In a very short space of time the dinosaurs die out, for reasons as yet uncertain | |
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| c. 65 million years ago |
| | | Mammals evolve in many new forms on land and in the water, using opportunities made possible by the extinction of the dinosaurs | |
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| c. 50 million years ago |
| | | Australia becomes a separate land mass, isolating its living creatures. They evolve into many species unique to the area | |
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| c. 45 million years ago |
| | | Primates evolve, from lemur-like animals to monkeys | |
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| c. 15 million years ago |
| | | A primate of this period, at ease both in the trees and on the ground, is probably the common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans | |
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| c. 6 million years ago |
| | | Various species of ape develop the habit of walking upright on two feet | |
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| c. 4.5 million years ago |
| | | Certain primates, in eastern and southern Africa, are by now sufficiently like humans to be classed as hominids | |
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| c. 4.4 million years ago |
| | | Ardi, the earliest known individual of partially human type (or hominid), is of the species Ardipithecus, in the Awash valley region of Ethiopia | |
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