Evolution of insects reaching wing margin and formation of the anal loop. The Jurassic () was important in the development of birds, one of the insects' major predators. During the early Jurassic period, the supercontinent Pangaea broke up into the northern supercontinent Laurasia and the southern supercontinent Gondwana; the Gulf of Mexico opened in the new rift between North America and what is now Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The Jurassic North Atlantic Ocean was relatively narrow, while the South Atlantic did not open until the following Cretaceous Period, when Gondwana itself rifted apart. The global climate during the Jurassic was warm and humid. Similar
Saltoposuchus in newly found ecological niches, Pangaea started splitting into Laurasia and Gondwana, and the air was very arid with hot summers and cold winters. After marine life had been wiped out by the mass extinction event, the Triassic waters were populated with very few families of fish. The Triassic Period showed the first development of modern stony corals and a time of modest reef building activity in the shallower waters of the Tethys near the coasts of Pangaea. During the Mesozoic Era, early mammals, reptilian species, and other insects populated the land. Insects that had survived the mass extinction and