# You are transported back to 70 million BCE **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 25, 2025, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335 "2025-07-25T21:33:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2025, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/121 "2025-08-01T22:42:50Z")
With humans and their ancestors, until we had direct genetic analysis, the base assumption was that any traits that we shared with other Homo, Neanderthals or australopithecines (and these would have largely been overt physical and physiological ones from the shape of bones) came about through common ancestry. The boom in genetic analysis allowed two things - to see genetic identity such as unique genetic markers, which was previously invisible for much of fossil remains, and then it allowed us to see them in a chronological scale, i.e. that Gene X came into the human sequence at a specific point in time, rather than having to be assumed to be there from the beginning. It does complicate the way we map interaction between human lineages, and by what we mean as a species. The reliance on fossil remains also reinforced the view of the human past as being rare, remote individuals. This has influenced a view of human ancestors as being very circumscribed in space and time, and in much of the world only bumping together at the edges in their distribution. That has also made it easier to think that the hominids were endogamous (within-group mating). Genetic palaeontology is proving those assumptions are largely unfounded, and also changing the nature of how we see ourselves as humans separate to our hominid cousins, so Neanderthal-Denisovan (a group entirely differentiated by genetic markers) babies are a Big Deal. In the 1980s I went to a talk by a leading palaeoanthropologist talking about the latest discoveries, and the baseline ‘null’ position was that while we had about a dozen named human ancestors, and perhaps twice that many cousins there was almost zero evidence of them co-occurring, because of the limited fossil record and the fuzziness in their dating. That meant that at any one time in any one part of the planet there was seen to be only a single human species on the ground, as there is now. Forty years on its hard to maintain that position. ---
**Author:** ![Jegpeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jegpeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jegpeg)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2025, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/122 "2025-08-03T22:40:17Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > On the other hand, if oxygen was at the high end of what I found in a web search, more like 35% than 25%, we might be adversely affected by _too much_ oxygen, but I don’t know if 35% is too much oxygen or not. Anything between about 19.5% and 50% oxygen is safe to breath indefinately. There might be a problem however if you have a “non-Tesla armormores vehicle” as an attempt to keep you safe from preditors. The higher levels of oxygen would increase the flamability of things the spark plugs could cause an explosion. For this reason OSHA standards define safe lower and upper limits to the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere to which workers are exposed as a miimum of 19.5% and a maximum of 23.5% (you would “probably” be OK a little outside that range but the level of risk would rise the further outside it you are). ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2025, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/123 "2025-08-03T23:42:06Z")
I’ve heard that atmospheric oxygen might have been 35% back in the Carboniferous, when all those trees were being converted into coal, but not in the Cretaceous. IIRC, someone figured out that 35% would be about the limit because higher than that and green wood would burn from any source of ignition. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/124 "2025-08-04T18:42:52Z")
It’s the mega-bugs that I would be most afraid of. Dog-sized centipedes and spiders with funnel-trap-doors the size of garbage can lids. And don’t get me started on ant-lions. For each dino out there, there are x1000 super-bugs. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/125 "2025-08-04T19:16:10Z")
Scorpion-ish critters the size of cows. Those would be no picnic. Or rather you’d be their picnic. Pronto. I doubt Hollywood’s entire historical output of scary aliens and fictional earthly creepy crawlies adds up to what you’d find in 5 square miles of Pleistocene forest & swamp. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/126 "2025-08-04T19:52:09Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > For each dino out there, there are x1000 super-bugs. Possibly **on** the dinos. Try lice the size of crawfish. In fact there was a short story about a time-traveling hunter who shot a brontosaurus and then didn’t wait long enough before going near the carcass. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/127 "2025-08-04T20:09:44Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > It’s the mega-bugs that I would be most afraid of. Dog-sized centipedes and spiders with funnel-trap-doors the size of garbage can lids. The huge insects were in the **Carboniferous period-** over 300 Million years ago. 270 million years before the discussed time period. Thank goodness. > [@Lumpy](#): > > Possibly **on** the dinos. Try lice the size of crawfish. The ones they have found are about the size or smaller than the modern ones. Of course, there certainly could have been larger ones. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/128 "2025-08-04T20:23:26Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The ones they have found are about the size or smaller than the modern ones. Of course, there certainly could have been larger ones. Not much larger. The main thing keeping insects from evolving to larger size is their inefficient breathing method. Increased atmospheric oxygen can make up for this, so that there were larger ones only when the oxy levels were higher. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/129 "2025-08-04T20:28:02Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Not much larger. The main thing keeping insects from evolving to larger size is their inefficient breathing method. Increased atmospheric oxygen can make up for this, so that there were larger ones only when the oxy levels were higher. True, the Giant Weta and/or the Giant Stick insect are the largest alive today. Both are IIRC endangered and pretty rare. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/130 "2025-08-04T20:44:27Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > Dog-sized centipedes I’m out. Centipedes are in my Room 101. Send Julia. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/131 "2025-08-04T21:38:32Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Scorpion-ish critters the size of cows. Those would be no picnic. Or rather you’d be their picnic. Pronto. I’m pretty sure those were sea scorpions, aquatic like lobsters. The largest land scorpions I’ve ever heard of were “only” cat-sized. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/132 "2025-08-05T06:04:32Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > I’m pretty sure those were sea scorpions, aquatic like lobsters. Err, not so fast on them being exclusively [aquatic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurypterid#Locomotion), there… > **[Sea scorpions almost as big as humans were already crawling to shore 340...](https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/sea-scorpions-crawled-to-shore-340-million-years-ago)** > > CT scans have revealed that sea scorpions, or eurypterids (ancestors of modern arachnids) breathed air and would sometimes creep up on land. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2025, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/133 "2025-08-12T02:55:00Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Hmm, i wonder if the maggots are safer to eat than the meat. [Likely not.](https://www.healthline.com/health/eating-maggots#risks) ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/134 "2026-08-20T15:39:45Z")
On my YT feed this morning: [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nAWpLtG-kNs/hqdefault.jpg "How Long You’d Last in Every Prehistoric Era") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAWpLtG-kNs) ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/135 "2026-08-20T16:43:56Z")
I remember a Harlan Ellison story (Warning: spoilers) where the bad guy got transported back to the dinosaur era (the non-meat eating kind?) to escape death by mob. He would only be there ten minutes and would transport back a thousand years in his future. He appears millions of years ago, a bronto sees a new kind of plant and masticates him to death, spitting him out because people don’t taste good. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/136 "2026-08-20T16:51:45Z")
Not to even mention that herbivore does not automatically mean peaceful and non-aggressive. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/137 "2026-08-20T17:01:48Z")
Was it possible there were ever full-size “Venus Fly Trap” plants? You know, where human size animals were at risk? That would have been interesting. It’s my understanding that the characteristics of Chitin, which is what insect bodies are comprised, necessarily limits how large they can be. So sadly, no airplane sized Dragonflies, which would be _totally_ badass. ---
**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:** [August 20, 2026, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/138 "2026-08-20T17:35:48Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > Was it possible there were ever full-size “Venus Fly Trap” plants? You know, where human size animals were at risk? Literal relatives of the VFT? No chance. Carnivorous plants capable of capturing and killing 100+ pound animals? Conceivable, but no evidence that any have ever existed. It doesn’t seem likely that a highly active trap could be both fast-moving enough to capture an animal and robust enough to keep it. You can imagine thorny bushes that tangle animals fur, they die, and the plant benefits from the goo leaking from the corpse, and those have been imagined, but there is no indication that anything like that has ever actually evolved. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/139 "2026-08-20T18:11:19Z")
Toxic paralytic thorns? Only it would have to be _extremely_ fast acting for the animal to die close enough to the plant to do it any good. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335/140 "2026-08-20T18:43:45Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > …how much more dangerous would it be than going back 20,000 years say? Well, the dinosaurs would be in their prime and, according to everything I’ve read, only very small mammals were able to survive in that environment. So, the answer is, “MUCH more dangerous”. > [@John\_DiFool](#): > > What would you need to bring with you to stay alive? High powered weapons with a HUGE amount of ammo. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-transported-back-to-70-million-bce/1021335.md?page=8)