Though the Cretaceous asteroid cleared the stage, mammals did not really get going until 10m years later, in the Eocene epoch.

尽管白垩纪时期的小行星灭绝了居统治地位的恐龙，但哺乳动物却一直到1000万年后的始新世才真正兴起繁盛起来。

You see the Amazon formed during the Eocene epoch, up to 56 million years ago when the whole world was a lot warmer and wetter.

你可以看到亚马逊河形成于始新世时期，距今约5600万年前，当时的地球要温暖得多，湿润得多。

Over the course of the Eocene epoch, the climate slowly began to cool.

在始新世时期，气候 开始慢慢变冷。

For example, Juxia from the Late Eocene epoch of China was about the size of a horse.

例如，中国始新世晚期的巨霞大约有马那么大。

One of these earliest rhino-ancestors was Hyrachyus, a lightly built herbivore from the Eocene epoch that looked kind of like a tapir.

Hyrachyus 是这些最早的犀牛祖先之一，它是一种来自始新世的轻型食草动物， 看起来有点像貘。

As they report in Nature, the critter, which lived around 55m years ago, in the Eocene epoch, seems to be the most primitive relative of tarsiers, mouse-sized primates which now inhabit the islands of South-East Asia.

这种生活在大约五千五百万年前始新世时期的动物似乎是眼镜猴（这种灵长类动物有老鼠一样的体型，现在居住在东南亚的岛屿上）最原始的亲戚。

Were the beautiful volute and cone shells of the Eocene epoch, and the gracefully sculptured ammonites of the Secondary period, created that man might ages afterwards admire them in his cabinet?

始新世美丽的蜗壳和锥壳， 以及第二时期雕刻精美的菊石， 是为了让人们在以后的岁月里在他的橱柜里欣赏它们而创造的吗？