Life long ago

So I knew, as you probably know, that the floaty rafts of rock we call continents were once one solid block and then broke apart, forming the familar map of today's world.

But I did not know, and maybe you didn't either, that the bump and grind of our planet was much more than a one-time dance. In the history of our planet, continents have come together, ripped apart, come together again, risen beneath the waves, sunk beneath them again and shivered at the poles only to steam at the equator millions of years later. Antarctica, for example, was once a mild and forested land. Mount Everest was once at the bottom of the ocean.

Smaller pieces have drifted around, thousands of miles from their parent continents and wedged themselves into new continents. Thus, Florida for example.

It is fascinating, fascinating stuff. Today I read about an extinct 2,000 pound rodent that once inhabited South America. It is believed that when North and South America collided long ago, North American herbivores ambled south and out-competed this mega-mouse, and it vanished.