Other forms: Miocenes
The Miocene, spanning from about 23 to 5.3 million years ago, was the first epoch of the Neogene period of the Cenozoic era. During the Miocene, grasslands expanded, and early apes diversified and became more widespread.
The Miocene gets its name from the roots meion, meaning "less," and kainos, meaning "new," referring to the fact that it contains fewer modern species than later epochs. But the massive Megalodon, a shark that could grow up to 60 feet long, lived during the Miocene. On land, grazers like horses, rhinoceroses, and a diverse array of early elephants roamed expanding grasslands. During the roughly 18-million-year-span of the Miocene, the biological foundations of our current world were firmly established.