ExtinctZoo - The Apocalypse That Turned Dinosaurs Into Monsters

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

Enough of this dinosaur - space rock slander, I'll have you know the dinosaurs survived plentyyy of apocalyptic events.

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on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at yamava Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. Dinosaurus, we love them, but some people sadly only love to make fun of them. Be it for their unusual appearances, they're sometimes short arms, tiny heads, the list goes on. And sadly for the dinosaurs, it's not just physical slander, as many people also take aim at their performance during the Cretaceous extinction,

making light to the fact that non-avian dinosaurs were taken out by a space rock. And frankly, all this talk I've seen about dinosaurs not being able to withstand the asteroid has been heated. I mean, yes, a fast rock got them, but by then, this lot already proved themselves in another apocalyptic event, one that most people haven't even heard of, despite it being in some ways even deadlier than the asteroid. And let me tell you, the dinosaurs did not just survive this obscure event, they did so in immaculate style, a testament to the fact that they truly were absolute freaks of nature.

nature, who certainly do not deserve some extinction slander. And this event they survived, the Triassic Jurassic, Jurassic extinction. This was one of the five horsemen to have struck our planet, so to speak. In other words, one of the five known mass extinction events, and as far as we can tell, the second most recent one, to occur, being post-aided by just the Cretaceous one. Yet in geology, recent doesn't mean that much, as it still occurred about 201.4 million years In other words, the T-Rex, Spinosaurus, T-Ratops, and Achylosaurus, lived closer to us in time than to their ancestors which actually experienced this calamity.

And when it struck, the world, nor the dinosaurs, were like how we usually imagine them. And in fact, dinosaurs were not even the rulers of Earth yet. Instead, the dynos found themselves to be just one more cog in the very, very strange machine known as the late Triassic, or more specifically, the ration, the final age of the period. This stage was in general a semi-arid time. with regions experiencing distinct wet and dry seasons, while periods of intense heat spikes were known to be regular occurrences. At the time, the planet was also undergoing immense geographical changes, as the final chapter

for the supercontinent of Pangaea had begun. Now it had first formed about 130 million years prior during the Carboniferous, but was now beginning to rift and split apart, causing great upheaval throughout the world, and of course for its inhabitants, who were already not a bunch, to say the least. On land, the top of the food chain wasn't occupied by dinosaurs, but rather by early Pseudosukians, who were, or are, one of the two major divisions of Arcosors. During the late Triassic, these guys were living at large, literally, attaining great sizes and possessing hypercranivorous diets, thanks to their massive skulls and razor-sharp serrated teeth.

In this group, some of the more famous members include the likes of the Postosus and the Fasolusukas, who, by the way, also happens to be the largest non-dinosaur terrestrial predator to have ever lived. So, suffice to say, this group had done well for themselves, and while many did become quadrupeds, a few were also bipedal, making them look an awful lot like dinosaurs. I mean, just take a look at this guy, the Papasaurus. Yet this was simply a case of convergent evolution. Then you also had the guys like Silasukas, who broke the carnivorous mold by being herbivorous, and in this case was eerily similar to large theropod dinosaurs, besides the diet, having been huge and bipedal, with the Silasucas possibly being the largest non-dinosaur to have

walk on two legs. And the diversity did not end here either, as you could also find pseudosukians with sails, varying modes of locomotion, and more. And these guys alone kept the Trassic very lively, so you could say. But they ultimately were only co-rulers, seeing that you couldn't have gotten around without stumbling into another group. The Phytosaurs. These were again a type of archosaurs, that were essentially crocodiles. Like, seriously, these guys were remarkably similar to them, both in size, appearance, and lifestyle, with most, just like Crocs, having been semi-aquatic predators. And honestly, there are more similarities between the two than differences. But again, this wasn't a case of twins, but instead remarkable convergent evolution.

I'd just suppose that it goes to show that a Crox body plan works pretty well, no matter what the time. And like the Sudosukeans, this lot could be big, ranging from pretty big to Uber big. So with them and the former, the world definitely had its fair share predators. And then, of course, you'd still have to take into account the vast amounts of horrific amphibians, giant formidable dicinodonts, and armored aeotosaurs who roamed the land. While in the waters, the situation was arguably even more chaotic, with fish, giant ichthyosaurs, early pleasiosaurus, cephalopods, and an endless array of wacky marine reptiles cruising along.

But of course, amongst this cacophony of life, we also had the main characters of the Mesozoic trilogy, dinosaurs. By the late Triassic, this group had already been around for over 30 million years, and it made some pretty impressive headway. They had transformed from tiny helpless little critters into some of the world's more successful animals, and it developed two distinct groups, ones that I'm sure you're familiar with,

saropods and theropods, while the ornithicians would have to wait a bit longer to evolve. On top of diversifying, dinosaurs had also by now spread throughout much the globe, and during the ration, you would have found at least over a dozen genera living across the splitting pangea. This included the infamous heliphysis, which in some formations were extremely abundant,

numbering in the hundreds, clearly unfazed by the aridity of the land. They were awfully successful dinosaurs at the time, yet not that big, representing the group's smaller stature. But they did get bigger, and alongside Silofeysis, you'd have found the Sarapotomorph, Camelotia, who measured up to 10 meters or 33 feet and weighed close to 4 tons, making it one of the largest dinosaurs from the entire Triassic period, and slimmer in size to a small to fair-sized elephant. Now, at that time, it lived in what is today England, which was not an island back then,

but just one more piece of Pangaea. But boy, oh boy, would that change soon enough? Devastatingly so. And by now, given my multiple mentions of it, you might be guessing that I'm hinting at the fact that the splinting of Pangaea is what led to the late Triassic extinction. And if so, I can tell you that your guess is... And right.

Let me explain. The very heart of Pangaea was a structure of immense size, the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, or Camp, for short. Back in the 90s, scientists began to notice something unusual. High amounts of volcanic rock in various continents that were separated by great distance. Europe, North America, South America, and Africa, all had multiple sites where huge amounts of volcanic rock were deposited. And these deposits, surprisingly, all had similar compositions.

Confusing until it clicked that back in the days of Pangae, these locations were all connected, meaning that these massive mountains of lava had stemmed from one giant area of volcanoes that rested at the center of the supercontinent, which had lost their temper during the rifting of the lands, causing them to erupt in ferocious manners, and ushering in, the transatl. extinction. Now, such an event wasn't new news to Earth, seeing that, you know, the worst extinction of all time, the Permian, was caused by a similar igneous volcanic province, which is the fancy term for these kinds of areas. However, whilst the Permian was deadlier for life, it also turns out that the Permian eruption was actually smaller, as its lava flows extended

for 7 million square kilometers, whereas the camp eruption covered an area of 11 million square kilometers, making it the largest known throughout history. And to give you a better sense of scale. This amount of lava is more than enough to cover the entire continent of Europe, and covering it not just in a thin layer of lava, but a real thick one, as these lava flows would have been like megastomies. And if you travel to Morocco, you can still see mountains of volcanic rock that stand over 90 stories tall. In studies on camp suggest that the total volume of lava ejected was up to 6 million cubic kilometers. In other words, the equivalent to over 1,500 Mount Everest. That's a lot of lava, and more than enough volcanic activity to completely

turned the world upside down. And let me tell you, this was not a case of one seriously bad day for everyone, rather an extended period of suckiness, as the eruptions took place over a period of 600,000 years, and were distinguished by four major pulses that together caused a bowload of pain. Insurging mountains of heated lava was just the tip of the iceberg, or tip of the volcano, because there were many more horrors going on, with one of the first to show being the vast amount of gas and ash being spewed up into the atmosphere in this blanketing out the sun, enveloping the world in darkness and cold, leading to the die-off of various plants and the subsequent starvation of herbivores and then, of course, carnivores. Unfortunately for us, it turns out that it doesn't require a near country's worth of lava to cause devastation to our ecosystems.

Sometimes all it takes is us, no shocker there, which is why I'm happy to be partnering with my friends of Planet Wild again. And if you missed my last shout out, Planet Wild is basically crowdfunding for conservation. They choose a new partner every month, aimed to protecting animals, forests, and oceans, backed by a community. of around 20,000 members whose contributions are used to support set projects. And the best part, we as a community get to see how our contributions are used through monthly video reports here on YouTube, so they're 100% transparent about where their funds go. Now, lots of things we hear about the environment are all doom and gloom, which is why a recent project that did in November is so exciting, regrowing forests without planting even a single tree.

Turns out in some areas like Tanzania, areas that look barren are only waiting to be reborn, with an ancient technique called Kisiki Hai, which means living stump in Sohili. Using a surprisingly simple method, they're able to coax out what seems to be dead vegetation back to life. And so the lead foundation, with Planet Wild's help, will be teaching this method across different villages to help restore 3,000 hectares of degraded land. And if you want to see more, I'm leaving a link to the video in the description. Now, I have been a member for a while, and I think it's a great way for individuals to get involved in conservation. So if you want to protect Mother Nature, I highly recommend signing up.

You can give whatever amount, big or small, as every dollar counts. And don't worry, you can cancel it any time. And because I truly believe in what they're doing, we will cover the first month for the first 100 people to sign up using my code extinct 21. So if you want to help save the planet, scan the QR code, or click the link of the description to join. And now, back to the video. But while the cold was certainly a piece of the pie,

it was actually our old friend, Extreme Heat, that would arise down the road, as these short cold periods eventually led to warming through the sheer amount of carbon dioxide that was released. And actually, some studies have found that these days were among the highest atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in Earth's entire history. So, understandably, temperatures eventually jumped quite a bit. And in some places, the changes are about 10 degrees Celsius or 18 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than usual, meaning that if you were standing in, say, Spain, it would suddenly feel like you're in the Congo. And that's a pretty good comparison, if I may say so myself, because it wasn't just the heat that got worse,

with humidity also experiencing a stark rise, a brutal pair that must have caused much discomfort for all. And along with changing temperatures, there was also just change it to the general weather. To be exact, it is believed to have increased the amount of storms and lightning that was occurring, or that occurred, with some estimates suggesting a five-fold increase, which might not sound like a lot, but has dire ramifications, particularly through wildfires caused by said lightning strikes, which we actually see reflected in the geological record by the large amounts of charcoal deposits from the time. And again, take into account that even today, with normal levels of lightning, lightning causes over 17,000 fires every

single year in the U.S. alone. So times that by five and make it worldwide. And the fires during the Triassic were so intense that soil worldwide underwent apocalyptic degradation, killing flora and causing a complete breakdown in the food chain. And to be honest, these were really just the more visible effects of the doomsday. Because if you could travel back in time and you stuck around for a while, you'd find yourself not only being cooked alive and being caught at some gnarly storms, but you might also start to experience coughing, shortness of breath, vomiting, bleeding from your gums, walking difficulties, and maybe even seizures. At the same time, you'd also notice a strange metallic taste in your tongue. And why you may ask? Well, it's because

during this event, copious amounts of toxic mercury were released by said eruptions, which covered so much of the planet that paleontologists even see that spores had their DNA mutated by the mercury. Yeah, not good. So obviously, this event was clearly nasty business, and this all does include any of the things that are occurring in the waters, as the situation was very messed up there too. And the eruptions had led to many parts of the ocean and seas becoming anoxic, meaning oxygen was absent to such a degree that it caused life to suffocate, while the pH level of the water also dropped, indicating global ocean acidification.

And if the anoxia was bad enough, the acidification would have also damaged reefs and mined any animal that utilized calcium carbonate, which as it so turns out, many do. In seeing that calcium carbonate dissolves in acid, and again, this was a global acidification event, we can probably assume that things could not have been too fun for them. And combined, the effects of these eruptions proved way too much for various animals, actually the vast majority of them, as by the time the Jurassic had rolled in, roughly 80% of species were no more. In the waters, this included the conodons, who become a huge part of Earth's history, and

also, by the way, the winners of the sharpest teeth contest of all time, which is a story for a different time. The placodons also joined them in extinction, as well as the Shastasaurids, a group of ecteosaurs, who had been the undisputed rulers of the oceans, and the planet's biggest creatures at the time. And while not fully eradicated, plankton did get hammered as well, plus the Ammonites nearly met their own premature end. Even Coral, like I mentioned, was heavily impacted, with 96% of all genera having died off. So yeah, talk about a close call. And yet, for all the carnage beneath the waves, it was actually aquatic life that fared the best in this extinction,

with life on land being far more scarred. The first signs of damage was in the trees, with nearly all groups being wiped away. And in fact, overall, it's estimated up to 73% of all plants, plants when extinct, with really only conifers faring pretty well, which thus put them in the fast track becoming the next hot thing in forests. No pun intended. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for an animal group, but did not fare so well during this event, the amphibians. Now, before the camp eruptions, you could find large-sized predatory amphibians in just about every freshwater source and its surrounding a goop. But afterwards, not so much, and they really never recovered at the same degree, ending a legendary run for this group who had even at certain points, like the

Carboniferous, been Earth's top shock collars. And yet, with that said, they arguably still got a good deal, as at least they got a stick around, while many others went completely extinct. And this included, by the way, all Triassic Sudosukians except for small crocodilomorphs. It didn't matter that they were global, ranged in size, and at varied diets. They all got basically steamrolled, including 100% of Rawi Sukhids, a very important group of carnivorous pseudosukians, plus the herbivorous aeotosaurs, you know, the ones that kind of look like dinosaurs at certain points.

Along with these two, other families that got Alt-F-Ford, included the trilophosaurids, tinaistrophids, pro-colophonids, Drapanosaurs, and even the mighty phytosaurs. And overall, if you look at the amount of species lost, this was the third deadliest event in Earth's entire natural history, being more lethal than the Devonian's extinction, and the Cretaceous one, i.e. the space rock. despite the severity of everything, you would not find one specific group among the deceased. And that was, of course, my friends, the dinosaurs, who would not only survive these catastrophic eruptions, but were amazingly left untouched.

A bit of a mystery, seeing that like many of the largely affected, they too were archosaurs. And not just that, but they weren't necessarily much smaller, nor larger, than the archaosaurs who did wind up extinct, with both the theropods who tended to be smaller, plus larger saropods, obviously surviving. So kind of perplexing, especially when you remember that they would later die in an archaurs an arguably less extensive event. So what gives? Well, in truth, it does not seem that in this extinction that being small necessarily lent any advantage, which is sometimes the case. So paleontologists have looked to other explanations. And a surprising hypothesis has been put forth, which is that the late

Triassic Dinos really had their ancestors to think. It's believed that the earliest ancestors of dinosaurs were fluffy feathered creatures and had warm blooded metabolisms. And the thought is that these traits extended to a lot the late Triassic dinosaurs, who were still still in the earlyestineas' dinosaurs, who were still a bit more primitive. And so the idea is, that these features provided some insulation that protected them from what may have been the surprising damage dealer on land.

Those cold spells I mentioned earlier, with the pseudosukians and other unlucky animals just not having the same cold protective traits. Another thing that has pointed out is that dinosaurs at the time were also far less specialized than they would be one day, with even the saropotamorphs,

possibly having been omnivores, whereas the pseudosukians, on the other hand, tended to be far, far more specialized. And so, in a perfect non-arobomorphs, this helped the pseudosukeans out a lot, but during the Tchaic Jurassic Jurassic extinction this specialization just ended up portraying them as it became harder and harder to find resources in the scarce wasteland whereas the dinosaurs could just eat pretty much whatever they wanted thanks to their more

generalist diets. Besides physical differences, some believe that the dinosaur survival simply boiled down to their luck. In other words, being in the right place at the right time, as it turns out that because their range was more heavily concentrated southwards, including in Antarctica, where pseudosukians were sparser, this could have helped shield them from the worst effects. But whatever the case, the point is, the dinosaurs made it through, and now found themselves in a nearly empty new world. And thus, they swiftly became one of the most common animals around, kick-starting their mighty dynasty that would last for millions upon millions of years. On top of securing their rule, this mass

extinction was also huge for dinosaurs, as without it, many kinds would likely never have evolved, as it was only afterwards that we see major radiation in this group that eventually led to things like Ornithicians, as well as the host into theropods and sauropods. So, ironically, while the dinosaurs have reasons to hate mass extinctions, they also have a pretty good reason to love them. And actually, so does one more group that I've yet to mention, who also in some sense won the lottery when it came to these eruptions. And that was the terrors. This clade of flying reptiles had actually just appeared during the late Triassic and were a sight for sore eyes at the time, for they were the earliest vertebrates to ever achieve true powered flight, which is pretty O.P. And because they were the first, you'd expect great success.

But in reality, they weren't doing so well in the beginning. It's not that they were doing bad, per se, just that in the beginning they were very small and very rare, making expansion no small task. On top of that, they also had to put up with the Sharovipterigdei, a family of Arcasoromorphs that have since fallen into obscurity, but in some sense are one of the most amazing things found during the late Triassic, as members possessed not wings, but wing-like legs, yes legs, which supported them in gliding. So while powered flight was still patented by pterosaurs, there was still a bit of competition at the time. However, like the dinosaurs, and definitely unlike the Sharavit Targadeh. Teresaurus were pretty unbothered by the whole apocalypse deal. And going into the Jurassic, found themselves to be one of the more common animals as well, and just about the only one that could occupy flight and glide-related niches in reptiles,

or invertebrates, allowing them to go worldwide, and ensuring a place in the dynasty right alongside the dinosaurs. And what's really interesting about this pair is that not only did both survive this event and have it to think for their success, but then they also went extinct in the exact same event, perhaps a reflection of the two's close ancestry, or just bad luck. Whatever the case is, though, in this story, the conclusion is that it was these rather unknown volcanic eruptions that gave us just about the most wondrous time in prehistoric history, and also proving that dinosaurs are no pushovers.

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