recent-animal

Updated: June 23, 2025

The former is so named because it was a transitional age of animals that are intermediate in a general way between the primitive forms of the preceding age and those of the next period; the latter name means the "recent-animal" age, when evolution produced not only the larger groups of our present animal series, but also many of the smaller branches of the genealogical tree like orders and families to which the species of to-day belong.

Henry Edward Crampton - The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its Scope