Swamp Forest of the Carboniferous Age: Diagram of Life in the Later Paleozoic
Life is creeping out of the water. An insect like a dragon fly is shown. There were amphibia like gigantic newts and salamanders, and even primitive reptiles in these swamps.
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Imagine walking through a giant, wet forest. But this isn't a normal forest. The trees are huge, strange ferns, and giant horsetails that are taller than your house! The air is hot, sticky, and full of buzzing sounds from enormous dragonflies with wings like birds.
Under your feet, the ground is a squishy, green carpet of moss. You have to watch out for giant millipedes as long as a person's leg crawling through the rotting leaves! In the murky water, creepy-looking amphibians with big eyes wait to snap up a bug or a small fish.
This is a Carboniferous swamp. It happened millions of years before the dinosaurs. When the giant trees in these swamps died, they fell into the water and didn't rot. Over a very long time, they slowly turned into the coal that we use today.
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