The Ginkgo biloba traces its roots back an astonishing 290 million years to the Permian period, making it one of Earth's most ancient plant species. Surviving cataclysmic events, such as the ...

It forms the transition between the late Palaeozoic Era, which was mainly populated by synapsids, or mammal-like reptiles, and the Mesozoic Era, when the archosaurian reptiles, which includes the ...

This also marked the first time the earliest dinosaurs appeared. The Permian period’s mass extinction had wiped out the mammals that could have been competitors for these reptiles on land and in ...