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The other largest mass extinction events being
Cambrian explosion/End Ediacarian The reason we speak of Cambrian explosion is because of the sudden rise of calcified remains, better protection which makes remains animals easier to preserve. The evolution of eye in first predators also appeared here. But there was a very weird Ediacarian fauna already present, most didn't make it past this border with a decline of 10 million years preceding this change, associated with an ice age (which also would've boosted oxygen levels). This was a biodiversification event following gradual decline, which made the oceans a tiny bit more modern-looking relative to the absolute weird Ediacarium which was a time of experimenting basically.
Late Ordovician second greatest of all time but species didn't make it onto land yet. Also seems to be relatively sudden over 2-3 stages, with a crisis followed by cooling and than warming, which maybe also suggests a external cause for this one (cosmic event).
Late Devonian extinctionS series of multiple extinctions event or very large timeframe of much higher background extinction rates, in multiple pulses, land wasn't impacted and first vertebrates exploring land also likely originated here.
Devonian was a time of massive changes, rapid rise and diversification of armored fish and jaws, also known as age of fish which saw increased stress on other species and also an evolutionary arms race. Towards the middle and end, there was a period of time, long-lasting lasting tens of millions of years with several pulses of heightened extinction, likely caused due to a combination of causes: volcanism and climate change.
And also the rise of plants on land, which would've messed up the atmospheres balance, increasing oxygen due to increased photosynthesis kicking off a cycle of rapid cooling, sea level falls, shallow seas drying up, general drying, warming, anoxia events multiple times over & over again.
This is also when the first fish (aside of arthropods which did it earlier) adapted to land establishing itself as amphibians. None of land life, incl. fauna seems to have been affected here
End Capitanian On itself a big one, one of the mass extinctions but often forgotten due to being a prelude to an even bigger one 13 million years later. Cause is likely volcanism in what is today known as Southern China. This is also peak supercontinent phase which would've made living generally more extreme, and also seems to have affected the way volcanics work by reducing plate tectonics and increasing hotspot-related/mantleplume volcanist events.
Life never really recovered from this one before the next one would hit.
Permian-Triassic The mass extinction among mass extinction events, known as The Great Dying.
On land it gave a massive blow to (ironically) the ancestor of mammals and relatives: the synapsids making the diapsids be in a better position to rediversify and dominate (dinosaurs and relatives). Both at that stage were still "reptiles". None of those went fully extinct but many of those groups did however, which is one of the reasons why a lot of those stem animals and mammal-reptile crosses aren't really around anymore.
All classes were affected, no animals really did well here. This is the only known extinction event among both plants and even insects.
In the oceans, it was even worse with staple animal species disappearing from the fossil record, wiping off 96% of species in the ocean, making the oceans never look the same again.
Cause is Siberian Traps, which lasted about 2 million years and also was a series of pulses within those years, including also having some additional eruptions post-border making recovery very slow and problematic. Recovery took about tens of millions of years.
Earth was a sick planet.
Triassic-Jurassic This one really ensured the dinosaurs would dominate hereafter as it eliminated most competitors of them. Cause is likely volcanism related to opening of the Atlantic/breakup of the supercontinent.
End-Cretaceous We all know this one
Modern day one.. We all know this one too, it's just a matter of whether you're in denial about it occuring or not, but if most megafauna/wildlife is already gone or only able to live in zoos or in restricted places in some nature reservations in Africa, than you know we have a problem.
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