# why didnt any Dinosaurs survive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 28, 2017, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479 "2017-12-28T19:24:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/81 "2018-01-11T22:31:03Z")
Yes, it may not be a matter of some species going extinct and others getting by unscathed, it may be a matter of some species losing 100% of individuals and some losing only 99.99%. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/82 "2018-01-12T07:12:25Z")
> [@Bookkeeper](#): > > My understanding is that the impact was at an angle, and threw a fan of superheated material over North America that scoured most of the continent (some limited areas appear to have been shadowed by mountains or other high ground) that wiped out exposed plant and animal life. The rest of the globe was impacted indirectly by the ash and dust of this event, leading to nuclear winter and heavy ashfalls causing further extinctions. > [@nightshadea](#): > > is it possible that the compy types scavenged off all of the piles of already cooked meat like it was xmas dinner buffet and thrived? > [@Chronos](#): > > A single stash of lots and lots of meat isn’t going to hold you through five years or so of nuclear winter. Some items I’ve read suggest the event was so destructive that no animals bigger than about 2 to 5 pounds survived. First the massive flash-fire; chunks of burning rock falling from the sky, a flash-fire sweeping around the world; then a nuclear winter for several years so very little grew. Anything that survived the initial blast would then be scavenging on the edge of starvation for a decade when very few plants could grow. Presumably there were places in swamps, on the lee-side of big hills or in canyons, animals in burrows or deep in mud, etc that survived the initial blast. Look at how small crocodiles or turtles are when first hatched, for example. After that, there may be a few plants that manage to grow in a few areas despite the colder temperatures, to provide food for the few surviving herbivores, and a bounty of cooked and frozen meat for smaller carnivores who are warm-blooded enough to survive… and so on. But basically, most of life was wiped out. T-Rex isn’t going to survive without a steady diet of giant herbivores for dinner, and once the local supply of dead ones was eaten - they were unlikely to keep going. Reminds me of the stories that rats loosed on an island of birds decimate them quickly by eating the eggs - supposedly one theory with the dodo… ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/83 "2018-01-12T15:30:29Z")
Isn’t that pretty well established as exactly what happened to the dodo? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/84 "2018-01-12T15:38:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Isn’t that pretty well established as exactly what happened to the dodo? Not specifically rats, which the dodos may have been able to defend their nests against. Pigs, dogs, and macaques (introduced monkeys) probably had the most impact. (Kiwis have been able to survive on the mainland of New Zealand despite the presence of rats and other introduced predators.) But yes, rats can eradicate birds from small islands by predation. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/85 "2018-01-21T15:00:38Z")
I thought it was _c_ats? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/86 "2018-01-22T01:52:56Z")
As a partial creationist I personally think a few did survive in some remote areas or on some islands. Basically from the evidence they are drawn onto some old cave walls and egyptian tombs. Kind of like[cryptozoology.](http://www.newanimal.org/dinosaurs.htm) However like many other animals like the woolly mammoth the last ones were killed off by humans. No, I cant point to exact proof. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/87 "2018-01-22T02:12:16Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > No, I cant point to exact proof. You don’t say! ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/88 "2018-01-22T02:13:53Z")
BTW, before you mention it, _The Flintstones_ is _not_ a documentary. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/89 "2018-01-22T04:13:13Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > As a partial creationist I personally think a few did survive in some remote areas or on some islands. Basically from the evidence they are drawn onto some old cave walls and egyptian tombs. Kind of like[cryptozoology.](http://www.newanimal.org/dinosaurs.htm) > > However like many other animals like the woolly mammoth the last ones were killed off by humans. > > No, I cant point to exact proof. There is zero credible evidence that any dinosaurs survived the KT event (with the exception of some possible survivals within a few hundred thousand years after, mentioned above). None survived long enough to interact with humans in any way. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/90 "2018-01-22T18:18:31Z")
What’s a, “partial creationist”? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/91 "2018-01-22T18:25:54Z")
Regarding “efficiency,” we once more-or-less assumed the nonavian dinosaurs died out because they were inefficient. This is lazy anthropocentric thinking, going hand-in-hand with Victorian assumptions that evolution improves animals over time until arriving at the pinnacle, a white male officer in the Royal Navy. We are finding out new things about dinosaurs all the time – this is sort of a golden age of dinosaur science. (This is partly a result of previously-unavailable areas opening up for exploration, like China, and partly a result of new technologies like CT scans for looking inside of fossils, or computers for rapidly assessing statistical data in bulk such as ranges of skeletal variation.) It’s long been recognized that the [hadrosaurs (so-called duck-billed dinosaurs) had “batteries” of very efficient teeth](https://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2012/10/06/hadrosaurs-tough-teeth-for-top-chewing.html) for grinding plant matter. Recently we’ve [reassessed theropod teeth](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150728091720.htm), and in the news recently we see a study of triceratops teeth (and by extension, probably other ceratopsians) that reveals _they_ had very efficient teeth, rivaling and in some ways exceeding mammalian teeth. There’s been [research suggesting that nonavian dinosaurs were “mesothermic”](http://beta.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-dinosaur-cold-blooded-warm-mesothermic-metabolism-20140613-story.html) – neither strictly warm-blooded nor cold-blooded. It’s possible that they were able to exploit the advantages of _both_ lifestyles – the increased growth rate and mobility of warm-blooded creatures and the ability to reduce their metabolism during times of famine and/or environmental stress that cold-blooded species are known for. Given their immense success over such a vast period of time (Triassic to, uh, \ right now) it’s likely that dinosaurs of all types were extremely efficient and well-adapted. There are more species of dinosaur alive today than mammal! There are more individual dinosaurs of one species alive today than humans! ([19 billion chickens](https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2016/01/12/whats-the-most-common-animal-species/)). Even wild birds exist in [still-staggering numbers, despite our endless war on them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-billed_quelea). Among multicellular land animals, dinosaurs have been wildly successful for an amazingly long time. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/92 "2018-01-22T19:32:28Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > What’s a, “partial creationist”? Never mind. Not appropriate for the forum we’re in. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/93 "2018-01-22T20:56:41Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > BTW, before you mention it, _The Flintstones_ is _not_ a documentary. And the Jetsons is also not an accurate view of the future. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/94 "2018-01-22T20:57:03Z")
> [@Bookkeeper](#): > > …The rest of the globe was impacted indirectly by the ash and dust of this event, leading to nuclear winter and heavy ashfalls causing further extinctions. > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > A single stash of lots and lots of meat isn’t going to hold you through five years or so of nuclear winter. underlines added. 😕 What’s this now? This is a word the pros use in this context? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/95 "2018-01-22T21:07:50Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Among multicellular land animals, dinosaurs have been wildly successful for an amazingly long time. Yet for all hundreds of millions of years, their never was a “smart” dinosaur. One that grew intelligent enough to use fire, tools, the wheel, or show any other development. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/96 "2018-01-22T21:13:43Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Yet for all hundreds of millions of years, their never was a “smart” dinosaur. One that grew intelligent enough to use fire, tools, the wheel, or show any other development. Was there a need for developments such as these? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/97 "2018-01-22T21:43:59Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Yet for all hundreds of millions of years, their never was a “smart” dinosaur. One that grew intelligent enough to use fire, tools, the wheel, or show any other development. And for hundreds of millions of years there never was a mammal capable of doing that either. The fact that non-avian dinosaurs never developed human intelligence says zero about the capacity of that lineage. Some avian dinosaurs, notable ravens and parrots, show intelligence comparable to or exceeding advanced mammals, despite having much smaller brains. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/98 "2018-01-22T22:06:17Z")
Actually, there are [dinosaurs smart enough to use fire](http://www.newsweek.com/australian-hawks-caught-starting-fires-force-prey-wide-open-spaces-774193). ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/99 "2018-01-22T23:39:25Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Yet for all hundreds of millions of years, their never was a “smart” dinosaur. One that grew intelligent enough to use fire, tools, the wheel, or show any other development. One does not need tools when ones body IS the tool, no does one need a wheel when one has no need to haul 20 years of baggage around. As far as other development, i dunno, i have dinosaurs that sing and dance and play and communicate, some even in human words and even make friends across species Man may have invented or used a bunch of things, but it wasnt by choice. Man is ill suited to survive otherwise, and man does not always do very intelligent things with these tools and does outright stupid things no dinosaur would ever be dumb enough to do. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479/100 "2018-01-23T01:47:02Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Yet for all hundreds of millions of years, their never was a “smart” dinosaur. One that grew intelligent enough to use fire, tools, the wheel, or show any other development. Evolutionary success is measured in longevity of the poplulation, not whether or not the population develops “intelligence”. Our intelligent species and the ancestors that showed tool use beyond what we see in chimps or crows have only been around for about 2-3M years. Whether we will last on the order of 100M years (dinosaur timeframes) is yet to be seen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-dinosaurs-survive/805479.md?page=6)