History Main / PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs

* In the StarTrekTheLostEra novel ''The Buried Age'', the Permian extinction event is chosen instead - it was a consequence of an artificially-induced galaxy-wide disaster. The SufficientlyAdvancedAliens known as Manraloth accidentally caused the entire galactic population to AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence, releasing terrible amounts of energy and destabilizing stars, among other things. The galaxy was an irradiated hellhole until sapient life evolved again millions of years later.

Why, none other than the extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs, better known as the K-Pg extinction in paleontological terms. Not only did this extinction wipe out almost two-thirds of all life on Earth and dethrone the dinosaurs, it also set the stage for most of the modern ecosystems we see today. The extinction did this by making the planet a giant hellhole.

Despite [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8550504.stm being confirmed with a huge degree of certainty and consensus]] to be some kind of asteroid impact, debating has made the K-T extinction ideal for the sheer amount of theories as to why the dinosaurs died out; rivaling that of WhoShotJFK. What's one more [[EpilepticTree crazy theory]] going to hurt?

Why, none other than the extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs, better known as the K-T extinction in paleontological terms. Not only did this extinction wipe out almost two-thirds of all life on Earth and dethrone the dinosaurs, it also set the stage for most of the modern ecosystems we see today. The extinction did this by making the planet a giant hellhole.

[[caption-width-right:350:]]

* X-com Terror From The Deep makes the asteroid a crashed colony ship.

* There was a ''RenAndStimpyShow'' episode where an old man told the titular characters several ridiculous theories on how the dinosaurs died, one of which was that "they thought they were SuperMan, and jumped off the roof."

* [[http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF055-Dinosaur_Meteors.jpg This]].

[[quoteright:350:[[Futurama http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs_3901.png]]]]

Despite [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8550504.stm being confirmed with a huge degree of certainty and consensus]] to be some kind of asteroid impact, debating has made the K-T extinction ideal for the sheer amount of theories as to why the dinosaurs died out; rivalling that of WhoShotJFK. What's one more [[EpilepticTree crazy theory]] going to hurt?

* In the ''2000AD'' serial ''Flesh'', the dinosaurs were wiped out due to overhunting by time-traveling cowboys. Yeah...

** And another one is ''Who Lies Sleeping: the Dinosaur Heritage and the Extinction of Man'' by Mike Magee. Though the sentient dinosaurs are ultimately wiped out by a nuclear war, they had already wrecked the world beyond reparation via massive polution, climate change and deforestation to give pastures to their massive herds of ceratopsians and hadrosaurs.

* ''{{Engine Sentai Go-onger}}'' has the villains reviving the monster who destroyed the dinosaurs. Yes, that makes ''three'' possible fates for the dinosaurs in ''SuperSentai''. One wonders what happened to them in the universe where the teamups take place...

* In ''TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'', the dragons developed an "iridium bomb", which ended up nearly wrecking the planet. The remaining survivors reverted to a pastoral existence until [[HumansAreBastards those wacky knights showed up]].

** Somewhat subverted though, as this ''changed'' the timestream, it didn't [[StableTimeLoop lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs]].

* There was a ''RenAndStimpyShow'' episode where an old man told the titular characters several ridiculous theories on how the dinosaurs died, one of which was that "they thought they were SuperMan, and jumped off the roof".

* While it's pretty certain that there ''was'' an asteroid impact that occurred right around the K-T extinction, there is a significant amount of debate as to whether this impact was the primary cause of the extinction, a trigger that released a [[SealedEvilInACan bigger disaster]] such as an underground gas bubble or supervolcano, one of a number of nasty things that were already going on in the biosphere at that time, or pretty much unrelated to the extinction itself.

** Though seeing as this is the same kid who claims pachycephalosaurs were [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot psychic dinosaurs]] who controlled all the other dinosaurs with their minds, he probably DidNotDoTheResearch.
** Note the reference to ''ASoundOfThunder'' by RayBradbury.
** It's probably more his personal WMG.

* Not quite {{Phlebotinum}} and not the dinosaurs, but there is a theory that rising [=CO2=] levels (and falling O2 levels) was [[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=impact-from-the-deep&page=1 implicated]] in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian_extinction Permian Extinction]]. As in, the one that killed 90% of all species. You may now [[BringMyBrownPants crap your pants]].

* In ''TheRealAdventuresOfJonnyQuest'', the dinosaurs were wiped out by an incredibly powerful time traveling nuke.

* In ''The ScienceOfDiscworld'', the Terribly Dull Lizards -- like many organisms from other time periods, very nearly including us -- were indeed wiped out by a random and cataclysmic meteorite impact. It's still PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs, because the reason there are so many rocks drifting around the solar system to ''become'' meteorites is because the UU student body had been tossing them at "The Target" (= Jupiter) as part of a cross-cosmic video game, and they never bothered to sweep up their unused ammunition.

* In ''TheScienceOfDiscworld'', the Terribly Dull Lizards -- like many organisms from other time periods, very nearly including us -- were indeed wiped out by a random and cataclysmic meteorite impact. It's still PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs, because the reason there are so many rocks drifting around the solar system to ''become'' meteorites is because the UU student body had been tossing them at "The Target" (= Jupiter) as part of a cross-cosmic video game, and they never bothered to sweep up their unused ammunition.

<<|AppliedPhlebotinum|>>)

** In any case, it's a throwaway line used to illustrate why love is so dangerous to the White Court, and has absolutely no effect on the plot.

*** Those omissions could be due to DidNotDoTheResearch, but then again they might be due to an UnreliableNarrator. Thomas is not a paleontologist, he is a vampire relating a childhood story about ThePowerOfLove and why it's dangerous. He might be exaggerating, or his father might have been exaggerating when he told the story for the purposes of driving a point home like any other [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop Aesop]].

* A dinosaur hold the wrong end of the wand when performing his vanishing spell, so they all went to the Land of Lost Things (''Donald Duck''). [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace Remember kids, improper handling of dangerous equipment grants horrible consequences.]]

** And another one is ''Who Lies Sleeping: the Dinosaur Heritage and the Extinction of Man'' by Mike Magee. Though the sentient dinosaurs are ultimately wiped out by a nuclear war, they had already wrecked the world beyond reparation via massive polution, climate change and deforestation to give pastures to their massive herds of ceratopsids and hadrosaurs.