Did Tropical Cyclones Kill Pterosaurs?

[storm_in_a_teacup]

I saw an interesting video on YouTube today. It's about how the most famous location for pterosaur (extinct flying reptiles) fossils might be so full of their fossils due to marine storms blowing in from the tropical ocean, carrying with them exhausted flyers.


Link: https://youtu.be/wiBgx05-JJs

The original paper the video is based on is here if you're interested:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)01037-1

[AnnularCane]

I have wondered just how far back tropical storms and hurricanes go back. Like if they were around during the time of Pangaea, and what tracks they might have taken if they were. Not sure anyone really knows though.

The guy with the light bulb in his mouth makes me cringe a bit.

[storm_in_a_teacup]

I have wondered just how far back tropical storms and hurricanes go back. Like if they were around during the time of Pangaea, and what tracks they might have taken if they were. Not sure anyone really knows though.

The guy with the light bulb in his mouth makes me cringe a bit.

I mean physics hasn't changed, so I expect tropical cyclones to have existed on Earth for a long, long time.

With Pangaea there was huge uninterrupted areas of ocean due to all the continents being in one place, so maybe tropical cyclones then actually could grow stronger.

[Category5Kaiju]

I have wondered just how far back tropical storms and hurricanes go back. Like if they were around during the time of Pangaea, and what tracks they might have taken if they were. Not sure anyone really knows though.

The guy with the light bulb in his mouth makes me cringe a bit.

Quasi-paleo nerd here. The Cretaceous Period, which was peak dinosaur era (145-65 million years ago), was much warmer on average than it is today. There also was a major sea in the middle of North America over present-day places like Texas, Colorado, and Montana. It's called the Western Interior Seaway (also nicknamed "Hell's Aquarium" due to the number of marine predators that inhabited it).

I think it's highly likely that there were very powerful tropical cyclones fueled by warm Cretaceous oceans, and kind of like how we can get strong cyclones in the rather-small seas around Australia, it's likely that the Western Interior Seaway experienced hurricanes like this as well.

[storm_in_a_teacup]

I have wondered just how far back tropical storms and hurricanes go back. Like if they were around during the time of Pangaea, and what tracks they might have taken if they were. Not sure anyone really knows though.

The guy with the light bulb in his mouth makes me cringe a bit.

Quasi-paleo nerd here. The Cretaceous Period, which was peak dinosaur era (145-65 million years ago), was much warmer on average than it is today. There also was a major sea in the middle of North America over present-day places like Texas, Colorado, and Montana. It's called the Western Interior Seaway (also nicknamed "Hell's Aquarium" due to the number of marine predators that inhabited it).

I think it's highly likely that there were very powerful tropical cyclones fueled by warm Cretaceous oceans, and kind of like how we can get strong cyclones in the rather-small seas around Australia, it's likely that the Western Interior Seaway experienced hurricanes like this as well.

I’m imagining now a bunch of pterosaurs trapped in the eye of a hurricane

[AnnularCane]

I have wondered just how far back tropical storms and hurricanes go back. Like if they were around during the time of Pangaea, and what tracks they might have taken if they were. Not sure anyone really knows though.

The guy with the light bulb in his mouth makes me cringe a bit.

I mean physics hasn't changed, so I expect tropical cyclones to have existed on Earth for a long, long time.

With Pangaea there was huge uninterrupted areas of ocean due to all the continents being in one place, so maybe tropical cyclones then actually could grow stronger.

Must have been some happy hurricanes out there if that was the case.