Mesozoic the Phanerozoic Eon, preceded by the Paleozoic ("ancient life") and succeeded by the Cenozoic ("new life"). The era is subdivided into three major periods: the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous, which are further subdivided into a number of epochs and stages. The era began in the wake of the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the largest well-documented mass extinction in Earth's history, and ended with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, another mass extinction whose victims included the non-avian dinosaurs. The Mesozoic was a time of significant tectonic, climate and evolutionary activity. The era witnessed the gradual rifting of the supercontinent Pangaea into separate landmasses
Triassic amphibians, the first Lissamphibia, progenitors of first frogs, are known from the Early Triassic, but the group as a whole did not become common until the Jurassic, when the temnospondyls had become very rare. Other survivors the Chroniosuchia and Embolomeri were more closely related to amniotes than temnospondyls. Those became extinct after some million years. Most of the Reptiliomorpha, stem-amniotes that gave rise to the amniotes, disappeared in Triassic, but two water-dwelling groups survived; Embolomeri that only survived into the early part of the period, and the Chroniosuchia, which survived until the end of Triassic. Archosauromorph reptiles, especially archosaurs, progressively