5 Strange Theories About Dinosaur Extinction

Fire or ice? Floods or volcanoes? What really could have happened to the dinosaurs? For more than a century, paleontologists have spread some theories about the extinction of these prehistoric animals.

However, not all of them are very convincing, especially when it comes to the so-called “non-avian” dinosaurs that have dominated the planet for a long time. At one point scientists agree: which says that virtually all species disappeared about 66 million years ago due to intense volcanic activity, climate change and a catastrophic impact of an asteroid.

But before that consensus came, several other theories popped up, and many scientists still believe in their rather odd versions of how dinosaurs mass extinct happened. Check out some of them below:

1 - Only male dino

Would the dinosaurs disappear for lack of sexual partners? This is what infertility expert Sherman Silber believes, who for the past decade has repeatedly stated that dinosaurs have disappeared because they could not find mates.

Silber speculated that changes in external temperature could determine the sex of developing dinosaur embryos in their eggs. Thus, he argued that climate change caused by volcanic activity - and the impact of an asteroid - could have deregulated the global thermostat, so that only one sex was produced and, most likely, the male. Thus, Silber believes that, without having females to reproduce, the species were ending up.

2 - Caterpillars of the apocalypse

Hardly a small lizard could beat a dinosaur in a fight. However, in 1962, entomologist Stanley Flanders noted that caterpillars can cause devastation in vegetation.

Thus, he supposed that the larvae of the early moths and butterflies would have quickly stripped the Cretaceous plant landscape, causing the deaths of thousands of herbivorous dinosaurs, which eventually led to the extinction of their strongest predators.

3 - Fatal Blindness

In 1982, ophthalmologist LR Croft suggested that poor vision was responsible for the end of dinosaurs, as heat exposure can make cataracts appear faster. He further supposed that strange-horned dinosaurs or ridges developed these ornaments to shield their eyes from the relentless Mesozoic sun.

However, he stated that these devices to protect sunlight failed, and the creatures began to go blind even before they reached sexual maturity. Croft's idea, however, cannot explain the mass extinction of non-avian dinosaurs.

4 - Aliens Service

Of course, beings from another planet could not be left out of this list. Despite evidence that there are no records of extraterrestrial fossils, this has not prevented some imaginative minds from suggesting that they passed through here and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

In 2012, the "Ancient Aliens" program devoted an entire episode to the idea, stating that aliens eliminated dinosaurs to make way for humanity. Are we then the ETs themselves? There is the doubt ...

5 - Flatulent Dinosaurs

Could dinosaur gases be responsible for their extinction? In 2012, paleontologist David Wilkinson and his team tried to calculate the amount of methane gas that the huge sauropod dinosaurs could have produced.

The researchers speculated that the annual production of methane gas from these dinosaurs would have been enough to contribute to global warming, but they said nothing about mass extinction. In this MegaCurioso link, you can check out more details about it. And you, what is your theory?

* Posted on 8/8/2013

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