ExtinctZoo - The Most Bizarre Deaths Ever Discovered In Fossils

Episode Date: August 9, 2025

If you thought 1000 ways to die was bad, wait until you hear about these prehistoric guys...

Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming,

Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn dignity, instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at Yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. In the southwest of Ecuador, there's a fossil site called Tinkil Loma that holds one of prehistory's

strangest mass graves. Within its layers, lie the remains of thousands upon thousands of bones belonging to giant ground sloths, massive herbivores that once roamed the Americas. But what makes this site particularly bizarre isn't just the sheer number of dead animals or even the fact they all died around the same time, it's rather how they died. Because as paleontologists would eventually discover, these giants met their end in perhaps the most undignified way imaginable, and also one of the most bizarre. And we'll get to that shortly, but what's important to note right now is that this is just one of the many strange deaths throughout Earth's history. And while I do consider myself a bit of a connoisseur in fossilized deaths, having looked at plenty of grim, brutal, and downright

unfair victims of life that have been frozen in time thanks to fossilization, what I found myself wondering as of late is what about the less brutal deaths, and the more so, straight up weird, random, and strange ones, those that make you wonder how does something like that even happen? And after researching for a bit, I think I've found some that represent just about the most bizarre deaths imaginable. And this time we're going to start with a bang, as this first fossil, or fossils, are pretty out there, and all begins in Ecuador, like I mentioned. Here in the Tankay-Loma a fossil site, you'll find the remains of thousands and thousands of bones that in life had belonged to giant ground sloths. And more specifically, the Riemothereum, a herbivorous genus that was an

absolute unit, putting all modern sloths to shame and coming in at around 4.5 tons and measuring about 6 meters or 20 feet long, while standing about three times the height of a human, overall making it much more comparable to elephants than its modern relatives. And this extended to its skeleton, which was absurdly robust and dense. And so clearly this would have been a tough cookie. And yet, within Tengue Loma, researchers discovered nearly two dozen of these fallen giants that not only had been killed by something, but were done so at around the exact same time, with the team dating the group's demise to be between 18,000 and 23,000 years ago. And at first, it seemed quite obvious what had killed them. It's like the Liberia Tar pits in the U.S.,

this site had a bunch of asphalt, suggesting that the sloths been quickly buried in sticky death goo, aka Tar, that seeped through the marshland area that they were living in. However, what was strange was that the tar only covered a portion of their bodies, not the entirety, whereas in the Libreya, most bones are fully submerged, and therefore this idea that tarred ended them was thrown out the window. And frankly, compared to what's to come, tar would have been the more tame out of death. As when they kept digging down, they found something a bit weird, an entire layer that surrounded the sloths, which was composed of varying ground plants that were both chewed and digested. More plainly put, this was a complete layer of feces, that was large enough to cover a group which

combined would have weighed over 80 tons. So we're talking about it Ian Malcolm level of number here. And you'd think this new find would lead to confusion, but for the team, it wasn't confusing at all. Rather, it was the smoking gun that they'd been looking for, as it led to the hypothesis that these giant's deaths had come from their own hands, or rather stomachs. As originally, they would have fed on plants in the area, before depositing their leftovers in the pit, which back then was a shallow pool. But slowly over time, these bathroom breaks accumulated, eventually transforming the pool into a toxic waste bucket of despair, where bacteria, parasites, and everything in between ran rampant, ultimately giving the sloths from nasty ailments

as they carelessly wallowed and drank the contaminated water, with the pathogens eventually proving too much. Now, this idea may seem like a stretch, but actually, this hypothesis stemmed from a real-life incident where in the 1970s the herd of 140 hippos in Tanzania were observed taking refuge in a shallow pool during a drought, which within a short period, large amounts of ways transformed that little refuge into their doom. In just a few weeks, the hurt ended up losing over 100 members to disease or poisoning. In actually, the soil around the ground sloth's final resting place suggests they ended up in this predicament the exact same way, with a drought forcing them to shelter into an area with food and water, which is usually good news, but in this case, the cramped space unknowingly doomed the sloths

to a fairly fun and messy end, no pun intended. You said this place was steps for. from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your oceanfront room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. No one goes to hang. for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet.

So Hank decides to bring back the $1.1 slice. He asks Copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs. Help him see if he can afford it. Co-pilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now, Hank has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza. Co-Pilot handles the spreadsheets.

Learn more at M365 copilot.com slash work. Yet, not all bizarre deaths have to be unfun, just ask frogs. Or more specifically, the 45 million-year-old ones, that were found within a mass grave in the Geisel-Tal region of Germany. As of now, we are not too sure what kind of species they were, but we do think they belong to the Palo Bataidae family, which lives even today. And in total, hundreds of fossilized frogs were individually identified inside of this graveyard, which back of the time would have been an expansive swamp and a haven for amphibians,

which thus begs the question of why did it seemingly kill so many of them. And for a long time, researchers had no clue, and for decades it was actually considered an unsolvable mystery, seeing that all the frogs were seemingly perfectly healthy at the time of death, having no sign of disease, old age, predation, or even scavenging. And so, the only thing paleontologists could go off of was their positioning and numbers, which is obviously not a lot. At first, only one possibility was thought plausible, being that their home had rapidly dried up. Yet if this was the case, they could have easily made for another, given the formation's

abundance of swamps, and thus this idea was crossed out. However, a few years ago, after observing living frogs, paleontologists believe they finally have cracked the code to this unsolved dilemma, with the answer essentially being that these frogs got a little too freaky. More specifically, they noticed that among certain extant frogs and toads, that a large source of mortality was mating. As across intense and short breeding seasons, many would often be overcome by exhaustion after or during the deed and thus leading to them drowning especially the females who in some groups are often pushed under the water by the dudes they also realized these geysel tall frogs

likely spent their lives on land only returning to the swamp to mate and therefore weren't the best swimmers to begin with making these fatal freak-offs just that much more common and deadly now with all this said even though they were having fun drowning is still not the best way to go but perhaps The absolutely silver lining to it is that it's not as exceedingly drawn out compared to the death of many other animals, of which includes another prehistoric one, a seriously misfortune a terasaur, who died in such a rare way that we don't know of any other fossil that represents the same thing. And the terasaur in question was a ludodactylous, a fairly large early Cretaceous terrosaur from Brazil. That's a bit interesting in general because it looks almost exactly like what the kid's toy for a Tyrannidon has become. And another interesting thing about it is the holotype fossil, with the reason being quite evident.

Now, it shouldn't take a paleontology degree to tell that something is wrong here, but the specifics are a bit more nuanced. That block you see that has seemingly become a part of the ludodactylase's jaw is a yucca leaf, of all things, which can actually still be found in various countries today. But this begs the question, how does a leaf end up becoming a part of a pterosaur's body? Well, one may think it was trying to eat it, and then, like a sharp Dorito, took us straight to the mouth. Yet, look at those teeth. This guy was obviously no vegetarian.

Instead, the paleontologists who discovered this pterosaur reckon that while flying at high speeds, this poor sucker flew straight in to a yucca plant. And you know this is terrible news if you've ever encountered this plant before. But for those who haven't, let's just say its leaves aren't nicknamed Adam's needle or the Spanish bayonet for nothing. And actually, some studies have even linked them to an increase in gardening injuries. Something that Lidodactylus definitely learned on that faithful day.

and the leaf ended up being impaled upon its lower jaw. And this obviously must have been exquisitely painful, and sadly just the start of its ordeal. As over the next following days, the crippled terrosaur would have slowly withered and died, unable to eat or drink with its disfigured mouth, especially as the wound festered and became infected. And no doubt it tried to dislodge the green spear,

yet its efforts proved fruitless, and ended up dying from this injury. And like I said, since its discovery, no other fossil due to death from a leaf is known of. and maybe that isn't too unexpected. However, as it turns out, plants and trees as a whole are much more bloodthirsty than you might have expected, and we are aware of other cases where they viciously ended an animal.

And included in this very exclusive club was a Cretaceous turtle of all things, one that had been skewered by a tree. So, uh, not exactly a normal combo. Surprisingly, though, this find was really just one part of a larger discovery, as it came from the Tannis fossil site in North Dakota, which is about the only known formation that has preserved animals directly killed by the dinosaur-ending asteroid. And I think that fits the bill for this video perfectly, seeing that actually being ended by an asteroid is pretty rare, bizarre,

and at least based off of the fossils, painful. And to drive this point home, you should know that besides the impaled turtle, other notable deaths included a variety of fish, both salt and freshwater-based, that were found mangled together Miles Inland and had gill stuffed full of molten debris. In other words, they had essentially died inhaling low. lava. And then on top of that, ant-nests were found chock-full of astray debris, a tsalis was mummified by ejecta, and many groups of non-avian dinosaurs were found smashed to pieces by violent

waves. Sadly though, this is just a few of the many fossils that are probably there, as the site is private, and thus a lot of the found fossils have remained hidden from the public. So who knows what else is out there. But that being said, another interesting detail about deaths in these parts is that the victims were often preserved in three dimensions, whereas normally, fossils are often preserved in three dimensions, As normally, fossils are pressed flat. And this is thought to be a result of the violent waves that clumped many of the victims together,

turning them basically into canned sardines. And what's really crazy about all of this is that this formation isn't exactly close to ground zero, being located about 3,000 kilometers or 1,900 miles away from the impact site. So think Cairo to Paris approximately. And so, even when being this far, life in the area is still endured, massive earthquakes, sage waves as tall as 300 feet or 100 meters, the powerful atmospheric blast, and a hail of microtectites, i.e., gravel-sized bodies of natural glass that are formed during meteorite impacts.

So this is all to say, this was a very bad day, and one that was ultimately out of the victim's control, which is similar to a situation seen with a very unfortunate rhino, who experienced its own rare and brutal death. But to observe it, we first have to travel to the Turkish region of Cappadocia, a unique place, known for a surreal, almost otherworldly landscape, which features a plethora of strange formations. And its construction wasn't the result of visiting aliens,

but instead massive volcanic eruptions of three ancient volcanoes, which took place millions of years ago spewing lava all across the lands and forming its rugged landscape, which has in turn yielded some interesting finds. The most interesting of which, in my opinion at least, was on Earth in 2012, when scientists located alone throughout Ethereum, which is actually the very same genus to which white rhinos belong to. However, this specimen was no creature still on this earth, instead being an extinct species

of the genus, who while being a bit smaller than its living counterpart, was by no means a small fry, having weighed over two tons in life, so a real chunkster. And yet, despite its robustness and size, it had been seemingly obliterated, as if it was a bug. The team of paleontologists only found the specimen's head, which was actually remarkably well preserved, but riddled with odd features, including a rough and corrugated surface, while the inside of all of its teeth were exceptionally brittle and corroded, which all pointed to the fact that this rhino was fried, dehydrated, and baked to a crisp, all in one. In fact, it was baked so severely that they could only really think of one possibility, given the area,

which was that this super unlucky rhino had been caught in a Vesuvius-like eruption, that fully engulfed it in a surge of lava, exceeding 750 degrees Fahrenheit or 400 degrees Celsius. And so obviously, the pain must have been unimaginable, yet fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you view it, it seemed that this throughout Ethereum didn't have to endure the lava for long. As soon after, it was bomb-blasted by a pyroclastic flow. In other words, a fast-moving hot avalanche of gas, ash, and volcanic rock. Which combined with the lava ended up completely dismembering the entire rhinos body. And explaining why, despite being found in pristine condition, only the skull was found. And crazy enough, it turns out that prehistoric rhinos in general had a knack for becoming lavified,

as we do know of another case, this time coming from America, where in a similar situation took place. But just with one slightly stranger twist. You see, in Washington State, a peculiar cave was discovered, about 100 years ago that held a very strange shape, being shallow and then possessing what seemed to be two prongs on the top and a protrusion to the left side. And after investigating it for a while, researchers realized that this odd shape wasn't a coincidence, but rather the result of a mold that formed around an actual animal, a rhino. In this case, likely a dicere theratherium, a late-delegocene to Miacene-North American genus. Now, it is quite hard to believe that a fossil can be a cave and vice versa.

But remnant bones nearby belonging to this beast support the idea, along, of course, with the aspect of the cave was perfectly shaped like a deceased upside-down rhino. And what's really interesting is that it being upside-down was actually a key aspect to figuring out what happened. as this is often what we see in deceased, somewhat large animals that are bloated and floating on water, which is pretty specific. Yet it's the specificity that gave paleontologists their likely story on what occurred to this poor rhino. The presumption is that one day while wallowing in a water source, the rhino was rudely interrupted by a volcanic eruption that sent lava flowing straight towards it. But at the same time, the lava wasn't exactly super fast, and it likely died from the indirect heat and gases

before the lava even touched it, which is inarguably even more painful and drawn-out demise. But anyways, now dead, the ancient rhino would have started bloating and floating on top of the water, giving it the classic upside-down pose. And then, when the lava finally reached the water, and thus the body, it enveloped the rhino in a hot tomb, while the water outside quickly cooled the lava down, forming a natural mold, which was then buried. And then over millions of years, erosion from wind essentially cut the mold in two, exposing it to the world and completing its formation into a full-fledged cave.

And so, uh, this obviously sucks for the rhino, but I, for one, after learning about this specimen and become a bit hopeful that one day we might discover a dinosaur cave as well. But something tells me the odds of that aren't exactly great. And unfortunately, the odds aren't great either when it comes to figuring out another case of exceedingly rare prehistoric deaths, ones that this time involve a creature not far from home, so to speak, the Australopithecus. And no, I'm not talking about the specimen. who likely experienced her own unlucky demise, having fallen from a tree, but rather I am talking

about AL-333, a vast collection of bones and teeth that had become known as the first family. Located in the afar triangle of Ethiopia, this find was dated all the way back to 3.2 million years ago and contained the remains of possibly over 17 different Australopithecus specimens, who differed in ages, but all came from apparently the same family. And you cannot even begin to imagine just how rare it is to find a group of early hominins that died in the exact same spot and at the exact same time, leading to unsurprisingly, mass interest and discovery, and making it by default one of the rarest fossilized deaths we know of. But it's not just what they've found that makes this site rare, but also the nature around their

deaths, because though we aren't sure what exactly happened, the likelihoods are both rare and unusual. Originally, the hypothesis was that the deaths were because of a flash flood, which is actually quite common, as far as mass deaths go. Yet tests on the sediments around the area largely discredit this idea. And therefore, a new idea was put forth, one that hypothesized a much more grim and unique possibility, which was that this site was the location of a one-of-a-kind massacre, one that was carried out not by other hominens, but literal man-eaters.

The question is, though, which one? And given the sheer amount of hominins that died, were pretty confident how to be a pack hunter, leading to giant ancient tainas being a prime suspect. But the problem with that idea is that they are vicious bone munchers who happen to leave very little in evidence behind. And thus, the focus was shifted to other potential suspects, chiefly large felines, who are known to both hunt in packs and a surplus kill, meaning that they hunt for more food than they can actually eat. And this further checks out when you realize that these guys avoid bones when they can, but will often still get a calcium boost here and there through the odd bones slipping down their throats.

And these odd bones are typically bones from the fingers or toes, which coincidentally were missing in mass in AL-333, leading to the assumption that if predators were the killers, that it truly was felines, where the prime suspects thought to be saber-toothed cats, such as the homotherium, Megantarian, or Dinofellus. Of course, though, not everyone is on board with this hypothesis, with questions remaining on just how a predator, or even predators,

would have killed over a dozen Australopithecus in one go, especially when we consider the fact that we aren't sure if these saber-toothed cats in particular lived in packs or not. And that's why we also have the second, less bloody, but in some ways, equally messy hypothesis, which is that this family just, uh, had some really bad dinner, eating something that caused food poisoning so severe that within a short window, they were all dead. And while it's not unheard of for food poisoning to kill large amounts of animals in a short time, some researchers do find it a stretch considering their vegetarian diets, and the fact

they all pretty much died in the exact same spot. And so, alas, in the end, this strange case remains shrouded in mystery. And it is not the only one, as there is an additional bizarre case that was for a while a complete mystery too, involving fossils that consisted not of one, but two separate animals, the Jurassic Fish Tharsis, and its contemporary, bellemnites, the kind of cephalopod. And they, starting a few years back, began to show up together within the same fossil, in a rather unique pose that looked just like this. And if you've been following, you might notice similarity to the teresore leaf incident.

so it might be clear what's going on here. But if you need a hint, what you're looking at is two animals fused together, not shoulder to shoulder, with that bell might being inside of that fish. And it's not just this fossil, because the really strange part here is that multiple fossils almost identical to this one have been found, leading to the understandable confusion and questions of what the heck was going on during the Jurassic. I mean, the Jurassic is already known for being crazy,

but to find multiple specimens of animals impaled within one another, is still a slightly far out their story, and one without many leads. But the obvious first step to figuring out what happened is to identify which one was impaling the other. But even that proved hard, because the bell knight for one would almost certainly never try to take on a fish that size. And while they did have hard internal shells that could technically pierce things at high speeds, their kind wasn't exactly known to utilize them for ramming. And meanwhile, the fish, the tharsis, was larger in size, but was a known microcarnavore, feasting on decaying soft tissue or overgrowth, and thus definitely not hunting down squids half their length.

And so, unsurprisingly, some detective work needed to get to the bottom of this. And literally only a few weeks ago, a breakthrough was actually made, after paleontologists realized something peculiar with all of the involved cephalopods, which was that they had a bunch of bivalves growing on them, a sign that perhaps they had been dead all along, even prior to the impalement, which in turn led to the hypothesis that the bellum nights deceased and full of little life, animals had started to float towards the surface, a result of their internal shells filling with gas. And once at the surface, researchers believe they became deceitful fatal traps for the

Tharsus, as it had a tendency to suck on floating objects. Now, normally size difference between fish and objects, or an object's shape, would prevent catastrophe. But in this specific scenario, the unusual size of the fish and the highly aerodynamic design at the Bellumnites, made for a surprisingly common predicament where in the cephalopods rostrum would slip straight through the Tharsus' mouth and into their gills, not a pretty sight. And once in, the fish was unable to dislodge the makeshift spear and would slowly suffocate until death finally befell them. So there you have it, a collection of some of the most bizarre deaths preserved in the fossil record. From giant groundsloss literally drowning in their own waste to frogs dying from doing

too much hanky-panky. And what's perhaps the craziest thing about all of this is that these are just the deaths we managed to find and figure out. For every bizarre fossil death we discover, millions more that we'll never know about, either because they didn't fossilize well, or because we haven't stumbled upon them yet. And ultimately, these fossils serve as more than just curiosities or morbid entertainment. They're windows into the past that show us that life has always been unpredictable, sometimes cruel, and often, just plain weird. It's a reminder that despite all of our technology and knowledge, we're still at the mercy of chance, bad timing, and mother nature. And if nothing else, they prove that no matter how tough you think you are,

whether you're a four-ton ground sloth or a flying reptile with a 13-foot wingspan, nature and pure dumb luck will always find a way to humble you. So the next time you're having a bad day, just remember, at least you're not a Jurassic Fish or the Dead Squid stuck in your gills. Thanks for watching, and until next time, on Xx. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's, like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Ralph's app, you can clip and save more with digital coupons every week. Plus, you can earn fuel points to save up to $1 per gallon at the pump.

At Ralph's, you can enjoy more ways to save and more rewards every time you shop. So it's always easy to save big every day with savings and rewards. Ralph's SoCal for over 150 years. Savings may vary by state. Fuel restrictions apply. See site for details. Seam Sue.