Editing Carboniferous (section)

===Carboniferous rainforest collapse===
{{main|Carboniferous rainforest collapse}}
Before the end of the Carboniferous, an [[extinction event]] occurred. On land this event is referred to as the Carboniferous rainforest collapse.{{sfn|Sahney|Benton|Falcon-Lang|2010}} Vast tropical rainforests collapsed suddenly as the climate changed from hot and humid to cool and arid. This was likely caused by intense glaciation and a drop in sea levels.{{sfn|Heckel|2008}} The new climatic conditions were not favorable to the growth of rainforest and the animals within them. Rainforests shrank into isolated islands, surrounded by seasonally dry habitats. Towering [[lycopsid]] forests with a heterogeneous mixture of vegetation were replaced by much less diverse [[tree fern]] dominated flora.

Amphibians, the dominant vertebrates at the time, fared poorly through this event with large losses in biodiversity; reptiles continued to diversify through key adaptations that let them survive in the drier habitat, specifically the hard-shelled egg and scales, both of which retain water better than their amphibian counterparts.{{sfn|Sahney|Benton|Falcon-Lang|2010}}