Location
 Nova Scotia
 315 million years ago

Mean atmospheric O₂
 163% of modern level

Mean atmospheric CO₂
 3x pre-industrial level

Mean temperature
 Same as modern level

 

A three-foot-long amphibian from the genus Dendrerpeton crawls amidst the moss and detritus of a Carboniferous forest 315 million years ago in what is today Nova Scotia. The tall plants surrounding the Dendrerpeton are varieties of horsetail, vascular plants that reproduce by spores rather than seeds. A pair of beetles climb the horsetail on the left. Behind the Dendrerpeton is the base of a tree-like Sigillaria lycopsid, spore-bearing cones of which lie scattered on the ground.

Dendrerpeton was a tetrapod, one of the earliest known terrestrial vertebrate animals.