Pliocene

The gastropod Aporrhais from the Pliocene of Cyprus.

The Pliocene (Pleiocene in older texts) is a short epoch at the end of the Neogene. It lasted from 5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago. The Pliocene follows the Miocene epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene epoch.

The world continued to get cooler and drier in the Pliocene. Tropical rain forests shrank, and deciduous forests shrank. Grasslands grew, and many herbivorous mammals became grazers instead of browsers. Hominid evolution took a new turn as some apes started to live on the savannah instead of the forests (Australopithecines).