Unfortunately, if the Permian period is an age of death, it is
not an age of burials. The fossil population of its cemeteries is
very scanty. Not only is the living population enormously
reduced, but the areas that were accustomed to entomb and
preserve organisms--the lake and shore deposits--are also greatly
reduced. The frames of animals and plants now rot on the dry
ground on which they live. Even in the seas, where life must have
been much reduced by the general disturbance of conditions, the
record is poor. Molluscs and Brachiopods and small fishes fill
the list, but are of little instructiveness for us, except that
they show a general advance of species. Among the Cephalopods, it
is true, we find a notable arrival. On the one hand, a single
small straight-shelled Cephalopod lingers for a time with the
ancestral form; on the other hand, a new and formidable
competitor appears among the coiled-shell Cephalopods. It is the
first appearance of the famous Ammonite, but we may defer the
description of it until we come to the great age of Ammonites.
Of the insects and their fortunes in the great famine we have no
direct knowledge; no insect remains have yet been found in
Permian rocks.
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