Planet Belgium (5) - Belgium, an Eldorado for Mammals

The origin of Belgium – and of Central Europe – lies on a mysterious little continent called ‘Avalonia’. About 500 million years ago, it set out on an unlikely odyssey from the South Pole. Enjoy our longread!

Four hundred million years ago, Belgium lay just below the equator. After a violent period of collisions and mountain formation, a quieter time dawned. Our land was eroding into a plat pays  and was largely submerged underneath a tropical sea with immense coral reefs. These would ultimately petrify and form the world-famous Belgian marble. Enjoy the longread!

Go back 300 million years and our country is a swampy forest right on the equator. Amongst strange trees, cockroaches fly, giant dragonflies hover and gi-gan-tic centipedes crawl. In the foliage, the first reptiles lay their eggs. The plant-filled and soggy world of the late Carboniferous will be compressed into coal. Enjoy the longread!

125 million years ago, herds of iguanodons roamed Bernissart, in the south of Hainaut. Their drowning deaths became our palaeontological stroke of luck: their remains fossilized and they became the Rosetta Stone of fledgling dinosaur palaeontology. When and how did upright-walking land reptiles we call dinosaurs rise to the top? And where in our regions can we still find traces of the apocalypse that brought their reign to an end? Read the long read!

Mammals lived in the shadow of the dinosaurs until an asteroid, 66 million years ago, wiped out the great voracious reptiles. This gave frugal, milk-suckling little creatures with fur, multifunctional teeth, and excellent hearing new opportunities. They seized those chances with both hands (and opposable thumbs). In our country we find crucial traces of their conquest. Enjoy the longread!