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In this way, the Mesozoic is comparable to the Cenozoic ( lit. "Mesozoic" literally means 'middle life', deriving from the Greek prefix meso- ( μεσο- 'between') and zōon ( ζῷον 'animal, living being'). The current name was proposed in 1840 by the British geologist John Phillips (1800–1874). The phrase "Age of Reptiles" was introduced by the 19th century paleontologist Gideon Mantell who viewed it as dominated by diapsids such as Iguanodon, Megalosaurus, Plesiosaurus, and Pterodactylus. The flowering plants appeared in the early Cretaceous Period and would rapidly diversify throughout the end of the era, replacing conifers and other gymnosperms as the dominant group of plants. The first mammals also appeared during the Mesozoic, but would remain small-less than 15 kg (33 lb)-until the Cenozoic. Archaic birds appeared in the Jurassic, having evolved from a branch of theropod dinosaurs, then true toothless birds appeared in the Cretaceous. Dinosaurs first appeared in the Mid-Triassic, and became the dominant terrestrial vertebrates in the Late Triassic or Early Jurassic, occupying this position for about 150 or 135 million years until their demise at the end of the Cretaceous. Overall, however, the Earth was hotter than it is today. The climate of the Mesozoic was varied, alternating between warming and cooling periods. The era witnessed the gradual rifting of the supercontinent Pangaea into separate landmasses that would move into their current positions during the next era. The Mesozoic was a time of significant tectonic, climatic, and evolutionary activity. The era began in the wake of the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the largest well-documented mass extinction in Earth's history, and ended with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, another mass extinction whose victims included the non-avian dinosaurs. The Mesozoic is the middle of three eras since complex life evolved: the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, and the Cenozoic. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian reptiles, like the dinosaurs an abundance of conifers and ferns a hot greenhouse climate and the tectonic break-up of Pangaea. s ə-, - s oʊ-/ mez-ə- ZOH-ik, mez-oh-, mess-, mee-zə-, -zoh-, mee-sə-, -soh-), also called the Age of Reptiles and the Age of Conifers, is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about 252 to 66 million years ago and comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods.