Plants:
1. Giant Ferns: Tree-sized ferns were abundant, growing up to 100 feet tall.
2. Cordaites: Forest trees with strap-like leaves that bore clusters of seeds.
3. Calamites: Giant horsetails with jointed stems and whorls of leaves.
4. Lycopods: Club mosses and giant ground-creeping plants that reached several meters in height.
5. Lepidodendrons: Tree-like plants with scale-like leaves and prominent leaf scars.
6. Sigillaria: Massive trees with bark marked with diamond-shaped leaf scars.
7. Glossopteris: Evergreen plants that form dense forests in the southern hemisphere.
Animals:
1. Giant Scorpions: Some Carboniferous scorpions, like Pulmonoscorpius kirktonensis, had a body length close to 1 meter (3.3 feet).
2. Eurypterids: Also called sea scorpions, these arthropods could reach lengths of 2 meters (6.6 feet) or more.
3. Dragonflies: Large and diverse dragonflies, like the dragonfly Meganeura, with wingspans approaching a meter (3 feet).
4. Ammonoids: Marine invertebrate animals with intricate, coiled shells.
5. Crinoids: Also called sea lilies, these stalked marine animals were prevalent in shallow seas.
6. Primitive Insects: Beetles, cockroaches and other insects began their diversification.
7. Trilobites: Common marine arthropods, though they were near the end of their evolutionary journey by this time.
8. Temnospondyls: Amphibians with bony vertebrae, several meters long.
9. Pelycosaurs: Primitive synapsids, the group that eventually gave rise to mammals.
10. Reptilians: The earliest known reptiles begin to emerge.
11. Fish: Diverse fish groups inhabited the oceans and freshwater bodies, including lobe-finned fish and sharks.
The Carboniferous period was a time of great biodiversity, complex ecological communities and the early beginnings of the evolutionary lineages that would dominate future eras of life on Earth.