This gallery transports visitors back to the Palaeozoic Era (542 - 252 million years ago). It was during this time that plants and animals moved from the seas to inhabit dry land. At around 300 million years ago, during the Carboniferous Period, diverse communities of plants and animals covered the planet. Just as life was flourishing, a mass extinction wiped out 90% of life on Earth at the end of the Permian Period, 252 million years ago. Known as the Great Dying, this was Earth's most severe extinction event, and marks the boundary between the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic eras.