Second Carboniferous

The Second Carboniferous is a period beginning 10 million years in the future of Earth's history and continuing until at least 200 million years in the future. It is characterized by mass forestation, arthropod gigantism, and a homogenous global temperate climate.

Origins
While a number of factors contributed to the conditions of the Second Carboniferous, its chief cause was the Sixth Mass Extinction, which ended the prominence of vertebrates on the planet and opened up a plethora of ecological niches which were quickly filled by arthropods such as springtails, mites, and plastic insects.

Salticid Evolution
As the Anthropocene came to a close and the Second Carboniferous began, arthropod sapience, especially in jumping spiders, began to take shape due to evolutionary pressure. Behaviors which had evolved before in select populations of jumping spiders, such as the genus Portia and its spider-luring ability or the complex mating behavior and displays of the genus Maratus, convergently appeared in other species around the world. Social bonds began to form between members of the same species. This pushed salticids to develop culture, both within their own species and between other species.

Early sapient salticid species in the same geographic area tended to view each other not as prey but as potential companions, establishing a tentative cross-species altruism that would eventually be strained with the development of systems of intense social stratification. Salticids developed the concept of gender as a way of dividing labor between members of the same group and exerting power over each other. Early salticid cultures were chiefly separated by geography alone and include the Terran Mingle, the Pan-Platycryptan Stem Culture, the Helpis Coastal Culture, the Mopsus Coastal Culture, and the Bold-Bagheeran Mingle.