Permian is the last period of the Paleozoic Era and famous for its ending epoch event, the largest mass extinction known to science.

Sea levels in the Permian remained generally low, all the Earth's major land masses except portions of East Asia were collected into a single supercontinent known as Pangaea.

This widespread extinctions of marine species at the end of the period by severely reducing shallow coastal areas preferred by many marine organisms.

The Large continental landmasses create climates with extreme variations of heat and cold and monsoon conditions with highly seasonal rainfall patterns. Deserts seem to have been widespread on Pangaea. Such dry conditions favored gymnosperms, plants with seeds enclosed in a protective cover, over plants such as ferns that disperse spores. The first modern trees of conifers, ginkgos and cycads appeared in the Permian.

The climate in the Permian was quite varied. At the start of the Permian, the Earth was still at the grip of an Ice Age from the Carboniferous. Oxygen levels decreased, wiping out plant life and the some of the giant insects from the Carboniferous.

Permian marine deposits are rich in fossil mollusks, echinoderms, and brachiopods.

Terrestrial life in the Permian included diverse plants, fungi, arthropods, and various types of tetrapods. The period saw a massive desert covering the interior of the Pangaea.


By the Pennsylvanian and well into the Permian, by far the most successful were primitive relatives of cockroaches. Six fast legs, two well developed folding wings, fairly good eyes, long, well developed antennae,a chitin skeleton that could support and protect, as well as form of gizzard and efficient mouth parts, gave it formidable advantages over other herbivorous animals. About 90% of insects were cockroach-like insects.

Early Permian terrestrial faunas were dominated by pelycosaurs and amphibians, the middle Permian by primitive therapsids such as the dinocephalia, and the late Permian by more advanced therapsids such as gorgonopsians and dicynodonts. Towards the very end of the Permian the first archosaurs appeared, a group that would give rise to the dinosaurs in the following period. Also appearing at the end of the Permian were the first cynodonts, which would go on to evolve into mammals during the Triassic.