- 8 hours ago
Across the age of dinosaurs, many regions generally experienced more rain than the world of today. Much of the Mesozoic was hot and humid, and although vast arid regions nurtured life for a great number of species, many groups of dinosaurs would have found themselves at the centre of torrential downpours, thunderstorms and mass flooding.
Without a doubt, the rains brought new challenges, opportunities and hardships to the many species of the Mesozoic, and found their own ways of dealing with the effects of natural weather phenomenons. As we'll see, however, the dinosaurs as an evolutionary group may have been able to rise because of the intense rains of the Triassic.
In today's video, we'll be exploring what an intense period of rain might have been like for the dinosaurs.
Written, Researched & Presented by: Thomas McGlynn
Thanks for watching.
DISCLAIMER: All materials in these videos are used for entertainment purposes and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement is intended. If you are, or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video, and have an issue with the use of said material, PLEASE email us before putting in a claim and we can resolve the issue immediately. We can be reach on this email: info@top5s.co.uk
Copyright © 2026 Top5s All rights reserved.
Without a doubt, the rains brought new challenges, opportunities and hardships to the many species of the Mesozoic, and found their own ways of dealing with the effects of natural weather phenomenons. As we'll see, however, the dinosaurs as an evolutionary group may have been able to rise because of the intense rains of the Triassic.
In today's video, we'll be exploring what an intense period of rain might have been like for the dinosaurs.
Written, Researched & Presented by: Thomas McGlynn
Thanks for watching.
DISCLAIMER: All materials in these videos are used for entertainment purposes and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement is intended. If you are, or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video, and have an issue with the use of said material, PLEASE email us before putting in a claim and we can resolve the issue immediately. We can be reach on this email: info@top5s.co.uk
Copyright © 2026 Top5s All rights reserved.
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TechTranscript
00:00Across the age of dinosaurs, many regions generally experience more rain than they do today.
00:06Much of the Mesozoic was hot and humid, and although vast arid regions nurtured life for
00:10a great number of species, many groups of dinosaurs would have found themselves at the
00:14centre of torrential downpours, thunderstorms and mass flooding. Without a doubt, the rains
00:19brought new challenges, opportunities and hardships to the many species of the Mesozoic,
00:23and they found their own ways of dealing with the effects of natural weather phenomenons.
00:27As we'll see however, the greatest lineage the natural world has ever seen
00:31may actually have been able to rise because of the intense rains of the Triassic period.
00:35In today's video, we'll be exploring what a particularly intense
00:39period of rain might have been like for the dinosaurs.
01:00Just before 234 million years ago, much of the Mesozoic world was particularly arid.
01:06Animals that lived in this hot, dry planet with scarce seasonal monsoons needed to be
01:10able to adapt to long periods of time without water and each develop their own means of surviving.
01:16Some became aquatic ambush predators, constantly hugging the rivers and coastlines where food would
01:20be readily available, whereas others dug burrows into the dry earth, digging up moisture-rich tubers
01:25to eat. This was a world that was beginning to change however, thanks to volcanic eruptions in
01:30the Rangelia large igneous province of what would one day become North America's west coast.
01:35As the eruptions spewed ash and gas into the atmosphere, the levels of carbon dioxide caused
01:40a global warming effect, rising the temperature between 3 to 10 degrees Celsius worldwide.
01:44The higher temperatures across earth during this time, the Carnian stage of the late Triassic period,
01:50would intensify the process of evaporation from the massive global Panthalacic Ocean.
01:55As enormous quantities of water entered this cycle, extremely heavy rains would be cast down
02:00across almost all the world in what would come to be known as the Carnian Pluvial Event.
02:05Dry desert-like regions that had been the staple feature of most inland environments began to fade away,
02:10and now that the monsoons were no longer just seasonal, tropical forests, swamps,
02:14and vast river deltas began to make their mark on the land, allowing for new terrestrial life to
02:19emerge while marine ecosystems suffered due to sediment runoff and ocean anoxia.
02:23The rains would spell catastrophe for the residents of the old dry world, and many animals that could
02:29not adapt to the increasing humidity and constant rainfall would die out as a result. Once common
02:34Rhynchosaurs, Dysynodonts and coastal reptiles would begin to decline in number as the shifting climate
02:39changed the patterns of plant life and disrupted the oceans, leaving the small adaptable
02:44survivors in their wake. The survivors in this case just happened to be the dinosaurs, who prior to
02:49the onset of the Carnian Pluvial Event, were small and inconspicuous, largely picking off insects,
02:54plant matter and carrion from the sparse patches of vegetation that populated the arid old world.
03:00Gradually, new species of dinosaur would begin to emerge thanks to the adaptability of their
03:04ancestors, who with little competition from larger animals, could begin to exploit the new environments
03:09of this humid planet. Dinosaurs would soon begin to spread out across the planet, populating every
03:14major continent and diversifying into many of the major groups that had been established by the
03:18end of the Triassic period. By the time the intense rains stopped as the volcanic eruptions subsided
03:23between one to two million years later, dinosaurs were diverse and well established enough that they
03:28could go on to dominate most ecosystems and the rest of the Mesozoic to follow. Along with them were
03:34other hardy survivors that had persisted in the face of the rains, crocodilians, turtles, pterosaurs and
03:39the earliest true mammals. Despite the fact that these rains might have helped the dinosaurs to
03:49evolve in the first place, they had a particularly tumultuous relationship with the weather. Intense
03:55rain, even for the animals of today, can spell disaster if individuals find themselves in the wrong
03:59place at the wrong time and that would have been no different for even the largest of dinosaurs.
04:04It should come as no surprise then that fossil evidence preserves many examples of dinosaurs who
04:08dramatically perished in flash floods or intense periods of rain throughout the Mesozoic, sometimes
04:13in harrowing detail. 76 million years ago in what would become northern Alberta, Canada for example,
04:20what may have been a huge migrating herd of the Ceratopsian dinosaur Centrosaurus, found out
04:24firsthand how dangerous the rains could be. As the dinosaurs made their way along the coastline, a severe
04:30tropical storm had been gathering offshore and winds were rapidly drawing it in closer to the herd.
04:35Within a matter of minutes, the dinosaurs would have found themselves trapped in sudden,
04:39fast-moving and frighteningly deep water and of course, they were not small animals or strong swimmers.
04:45Many, if not all of them, were swept away as the water swelled and unable to escape to safety,
04:50they were deposited in what would become a colossal mass grave, a bone bed of thousands.
04:55A similar fate awaited dinosaurs living in Italy around 80 million years ago at the
05:00Villaggio del Pescatore site. This too was an area that frequently found itself battered by seasonal
05:06monsoons, which across the summer months would ravage the flood plains and valleys of southern Europe.
05:11Amongst the dinosaurs living in this natural storm belt was the hadrosaur species Tethys
05:15Hadros insularis, a four-meter-long herbivore resembling the likes of Edmontosaurus and Myasaurus.
05:22Year on year, the region in which these dinosaurs browsed, bred and took shelter was hit with storm
05:27after storm, causing the tidal mudflats and river valleys to burst into boggy, drowned wetlands.
05:32When the rain hit, sediment from the mudflats would ensure that many of the dinosaurs that
05:36inevitably drowned in the disaster would be extremely well preserved, covering them before they could rot or
05:41be found by scavengers. You may in fact be familiar with the classic dinosaur death pose,
05:46often preserved in the fossil record amongst theropods and small ornithischians.
05:50In these incidents, dinosaur bones are shown articulated with the neck thrown back and the
05:55tail facing upwards, with the limbs forming an obscure tangle of femurs and tibias.
06:00Studies have actually shown that rain and the flash floods caused by it may be responsible for creating
06:05this pose in death, impacting our mental image of dinosaur bones from the dawn of paleontology onwards.
06:10When a dinosaur died, muscles and soft tissue in its body would have begun to decay when exposed to
06:15fresh water, and the buoyancy of flexible ligaments running along the vertebrae soon allowed the tail
06:20and neck to be pulled backwards as a result. This created the characteristic death pose seen in many
06:25fossils, which, when the bones were covered with sediment, allowed them to preserve in the rocks that
06:29way forever.
06:36So what actually happened when dinosaurs found themselves caught in a downpour?
06:40Well first and foremost, it's important to remember that just like the weather of today,
06:45not every instance of rainfall is a sign of natural disaster. Dinosaurs would have faced more intense
06:50periods of rain during the monsoon seasons, or if they resided in humid tropical rainforests where such
06:55weather was part of everyday life, but for the most part, wet weather did not spell doom.
07:00To find out how dinosaurs rode out non-threatening showers then, we can look for clues in the way
07:05modern animals handle the rain. Small theropod dinosaurs, such as Sinosauropteryx, Microraptor,
07:10and their cousins, may have been the most at risk species when it came to intense rainfall,
07:14being so small and covered with a plumage that, in most instances, probably wasn't waterproof.
07:19When similar sized modern animals, such as crows and small birds of prey, experience bad weather,
07:25they start by hiding in dense foliage, concealing themselves in the tops of trees or in rocky
07:29crevices to wait out the worst of the deluge. Some even point their heads upwards into the rain to
07:34give the water the best chance of running off their backs and onto the ground, whereas others will rub
07:38naturally occurring oils from glands near their tail onto the plumage to create a temporary waterproof coat.
07:44While we cannot say for certain if any of these behaviours were present in dinosaurs living
07:48similar lifestyles, we can of course speculate. Perhaps arboreal predators such as Sinornithosaurus
07:54fluff their feathers to trap air and keep inner insulating layers dry and warm to stave off the
07:59dangers of hypothermia. For these little hunters, an end to the rain would have been the perfect time
08:04to dive into a potential feast on the forest floor, as insects and small animals emerge from their hiding
08:09places along the freshly softened soil. Larger dinosaurs, both of the herbivorous and carnivorous varieties,
08:15may have acted much the same, taking shelter under trees or in caves when the downpours arrived in
08:20order to keep warm and dry, but some however could potentially have taken advantage of the rain.
08:25Large herbivores such as hadrosaurs, ceratopsians or even the mighty sauropods may have used the rain in
08:30ways much like modern day elephants, allowing them to cool down in particularly warm summer periods.
08:35They may have rolled in the resulting mud puddles to rid their skin of parasites and to create a
08:40protective coat of hardened earth to block the sun's most intense rays at the peak of midday.
08:45Large theropods such as the tyrannosaurs and carcharodontosaurs of the late Cretaceous may
08:49even have taken advantage of the chaos brought about by the arrival of an intense storm,
08:53ambushing smaller animals as they hurry to find shelter in the tree line.
08:58Pterosaurs would have been amongst the animals who were most at risk during times of stormy weather and
09:02almost certainly chose to sit out the intense winds and rain at their nests, which probably would have
09:06been situated within the branches of trees or along the walls of cliffs or rock faces.
09:11Flying in the wind could easily cause a pterosaur to be knocked off course resulting in a collision
09:15with foliage or the ground. In smaller individuals this could directly spell death entirely whereas
09:20for the larger species it would be easy to acquire a broken bone or a painful fracture resulting in the
09:26inability to fly altogether. Much like the sharks of the modern day, large marine predators such as
09:31mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs may have been affected by the rain too,
09:35even if they spent their lives completely surrounded by water.
09:38When storms and heavy rains hit, modern sharks will typically swim out to deeper waters to avoid
09:43getting swept up in rough waves or tsunamis and travel further towards the coast when the weather
09:48calms down. Although mosasaurs and the like were air-breathing reptiles, they filled a similar
09:53ecological niche and may have needed to seek out the open oceans when bad weather arose to avoid
09:57beaching themselves on the land. When the storms died down, these reptiles would perhaps then be able
10:02to return to their usual hunting grounds, maybe even making the most of any animal carcasses
10:07that had been washed into the seas by any resulting floods.
10:15Although behaviour rarely fossilises, we can use what we know about the behaviours of modern day
10:20animals to discern what dinosaurs might have done in particular situations. Modern ecological analogues are
10:26at the end of the day all we have to compare these mighty reptiles to, and so when the rains
10:30came crashing down,
10:31there was no doubt a high degree of variation in behaviours between the innumerable species.
10:36Thank you so much for watching to the end of today's video, we hope you enjoyed it.
10:39Don't forget to like, hype and subscribe to Dinosaur Discovery, and we'll see you next time!