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# When Sails Were All the Rage
- URL: https://www.cascadepbs.org/show/eons/episode/when-sails-were-all-the-rage-vktllt/
- Published: 2026-09-15T20:30:38.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-17T08:30:16.000Z
- Description: Around 300 million years ago sails were all the rage, but we're still not sure what they were for.
- Author: Cascade PBS Staff
- Tags: Eons, Season 9, Episode 9, #ZZZ_Episode_494cf056-ff67-4204-af92-49241770490e, #episode, #ZZZ_Show_097a92b5-f8ed-4727-9486-f3b9368ac0ef, #geo-us, #v1.16

Around 300 million years ago, in the early Permian Period, life on land was a cauldron of strange experiments. There’s one trait from the Early Permian that was extremely common back then, but is almost totally absent in living species today. This is a tale about sails, and the enigma of why, for a brief critical phase in the history of life, sporting a big biological billboard was all the rage.