This was the case for mammals, which became the dominant group on the planet. However, the most numerous group remained the birds. In terms of plants, it was the flowering plants that colonized the Earth’s surface.
Some dinosaurs managed to survive the crisis, and birds as well as present-day crocodiles are their descendants.
After the crisis episode, the climate continued to warm until reaching an optimum in the early Paleogene. In the meantime, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), an abrupt event that started 55 million years ago and lasted 100,000 years, occurred. The temperatures of the deep and surface oceans rose abruptly. For instance, Antarctic waters reached 21°C, with palm trees growing there.