(To the melody of “Turkey in the Straw.” Words by Bob Swanson – music is public domain)

If you want to know Earth’s history, you have got to learn the terms
Before fishies, life was squishy, just bacteria and worms
For the first four billion years, there may have been primordial ooze
But for most paleontologists, it’s a Precambrian snooze

The Phanerozoic Eon’s the last half billion years
That’s when life took off and it’s divided into eras
Paleozoic and Mesozoic ended in a tragic way
Many Cenozoic species are the ones we see today

Though there have been mass extinctions, fossils still can shed a light
On the Cambrian Period which was ruled by trilobites
Jawless Ordovician fish, and plants gave land a go
Silurian swamps gave rise to Carboniferous coal

Past the Permian Extinction, life still found a way
Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous – the Dinosaur Age
Til an asteroid collision knocked the dinos from their perch
And made room for mammals, flowers, insects and all kinds of birds

Cenozoic Era marks the last sixty-five million years
Made of Paleogene and Neogene and Quaternary periods
Seven epochs ending in -cene makes it kinda hard to rhyme
But this song is almost over so I guess I’ll have to try

Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene on the scene
Miocene and Pliocene — you see just what I mean
Pleistocene with ice ages, and glaciers near and far
Holocene’s the time we’re in – that’s where the humans are