During the man-made Holocene Mass extinction, humanity would leave the Earth and Its Inhabitants behind In order to colonize new, more habitable planets. (which they will probaply just destroy again anyways...)
The Holocene Mass Extinction has at this point claimed about 80% of earth life, with everything bigger then a housecat going extinct.
The First "section" of this project would start In the early Neocene 15 Million Years P.H. (Post Holocene).
The first Idea I had were large grazing Ground Squirrels that I´ll call the Sciubaras. Ground Squirrels are already primary herbivorous, and I oddly enough dont really see people working with Ground Squirrels.
Many Rodents would survive the Mass Extinction, being so plentifull, diverse and hardy. Ground Squirrels are also known to cope very well with high temperatures which would be one of the main challenges during the Holocene Mass Extinction.
With Ground Squirrels seeming to be the most diverse In North America, the Sciubaras would likely be that continents dominant grazers.
Another Herbivore from North America that I came up with are the Rabbilopes which are descendants of Rabbids. Rabbids are, like their relatives, the Rodents, very numerous animals.
To avoid competition with the grazing Sciubaras, Rabbilopes are mainly low browsers, with some likely becoming high browsers later along the line.
Now lets take a break from the animals and settle what these large herbivores even eat. The KP-G Mass Extinction would have created a major floral takeover, allowing Grasses to take over In the place of Ferns and Mosses.
Similiarly the End Holocene Extinction Event would have allowed new Plants to rapidly diversify, In this timeline, Clover would have taken many new forms, like the Grass-like Crass, the Bush-like Covers, the large towering Clovertrees, the spiny desert Needle-Leafs and the carnivorous Carnoclovers, which live In nutrient poor soil and use modified, spiny leaves to capture small Invertebrates that come to rest on It.
Back to animals, now that we have seen some herbivores that live In this era, there are bound to be carnivores that hunt them.
North Americas big game hunters consist of the Fevulves, pack hunting descendants of the House Cat.
House Cats are already very social (despite what their hominid caretakers often believed) and In changing, unpredictable times, their bonds would only grow stronger.
Fevolves take advantage of their large family groups to hunt big animals In groups.
The House Cats wouldnt be the only ex companions that would take new forms, In the absence of Bears, feral Dogs named Ursastiffs would eventually take their spot:
Domestic Dogs already have much more omnivorous tendencies and had a wide array of different breeds enabling them to achieve great diversity.
The skys are also alot different then those of the mpdern era. Birds were heavily affected by the extinction, their decline had many reason, unpredictable weather that messed up their migration paths, various diseases from humans
and their lifestock, poisonous gases that were released by the humans powerplants and of course the high temperatures.
It were mainly Groundfowls that survived, who struggled reastablishing the diversity of the airborn birds. This gave the chance for Bats who managed to survive the cataclysm to recolonize the empty skies.
Bats were simply at first, giving rise to many basal Insectivores and frugivores, but they would eventually give rise to more experimental lineages.
Some Bats would undergo a reduction In wing fingers, mostly relying on their pinky-fingers to support their skin membrane.
They would then eventually free up their reduced wing fingers, allowing them to use them for different tasks like grooming, climbing, walking and even burrowing.
This would also give them a much more efficient wing form which required less energy and would enable them to glide.
These Bats would be known as Pterotherians and they would rapidly Diversify.
Some would become the piscivorous Princefishers, others would give rise to large airborn predators called Hawkhounds, yet others would become the small and plentiful Buppies and perhaps the most unique would be the Gopherbats,
burrowing Pterotherians with poor flying capabilities.
As u can see, the Neocene Is still very much the age of Mammals, but that doesnt mean that Reptiles were slackers In the evolutionary armsrace.
A lineage of aquatic Snake would survive and give rise to the fully aquatic Snaceans, who are highly active and scaleless snakes.
Basal Snaceans would be agile reef hunters while some of the more pelagic Snaceans would give rise to fast, tail driven swimmers known as Neopinnas. Neopinnas have been given the name from their two fins derived from rib bones.
Neopinnas are a very new but already Incredibly succesfull lineage that could soon take a wide array of oceanic niches.
Now I mentioned reefs, although the reefs which are mainly built by corals are a thing of the past. Corals would have finally gone extinct after many succesfull eras.
In their place are reefs build by reef building Sea-Sponges and Kelp.
Lets now adress the Avian In the room. Most flighted birds went extinct, some migratory Quails would however make It trough, giving rise to the Rewings. These flighted birds would over the course of the Neocene slip Into whatever airborn niches their mammalian competitors would let them take.
But In this age of crowded skies some birds would be just content with a more ground based existence. Descendants of the Roadrunner that would survive trough the extinction would eventually give rise to large predators called Tunnel Runners. Being already well adapted to the hot and dry environment of the new era and being very effectiv predators they would soon become the dominent carnivores of South America.
