Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Could tyrannosaurs survive the Ice Age? Welcome to the Pleistocene: a time period famous for intense glaciation and charismatic mammalian megafauna, with cycles of ice covering much of the northern world. Mammoths, woolly rhinos, sabertooth cats, and enormous bears roamed the earth, and in some southern regions gigantic birds filled the large herbivore niche. Today, Pleistocene Earth has an even more ancient visitor: Yutyrannus huali, an early tyrannosaur from Cretaceous China. This ancient predator is no stranger to freezing climes, but can it adapt to a world of giant mammals and fast competitors? We’ll cover how it interacts with its new Home, obtains food to satisfy its Hunger, and handles conflicts with native competitors and predators. Then, at the end, we’ll examine how its arrival in the Pleistocene could cause its own evolutionary trajectory to change.
Drums of the Deep by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
REFERENCES
Yutyrannus description paper https://www.ivpp.ac.cn/sourcedb/zw/rck/yszj/202311/P020140314391160313630.pdf
Jehol Biota onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/gj.1045
Age of the Yixian Formation sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S003101820900217X?via%3Dihub
Orbital forcing causing cold winters sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018213002502?via%3Dihub
Temperature of the Yixian Formation pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3069172
Nihewan Formation onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/evan.21813
Nihewan Basin structure and climate nature.com/articles/srep02403
The Nihewan Fauna sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618222003810
Pachycrocuta behavior linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1040618211000115
Pachycrocuta pack behavior sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379121004479
Ursus etruscus omnivory sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018223005448?via%3Dihub
Ursus etruscus piscivory sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618215010253?via%3Dihub
Homotherium group behavior researchgate.net/publication/348754549_BEHAVIOUR_OF_HOMOTHERIUM_IN_THE_LIGHT_OF_MODERN_AFRICAN_BIG_CATS
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Could tyrannosaurs survive the Ice Age? Welcome to the Pleistocene: a time period famous for intense glaciation and charismatic mammalian megafauna, with cycles of ice covering much of the northern world. Mammoths, woolly rhinos, sabertooth cats, and enormous bears roamed the earth, and in some southern regions gigantic birds filled the large herbivore niche. Today, Pleistocene Earth has an even more ancient visitor: Yutyrannus huali, an early tyrannosaur from Cretaceous China. This ancient predator is no stranger to freezing climes, but can it adapt to a world of giant mammals and fast competitors? We’ll cover how it interacts with its new Home, obtains food to satisfy its Hunger, and handles conflicts with native competitors and predators. Then, at the end, we’ll examine how its arrival in the Pleistocene could cause its own evolutionary trajectory to change.
Drums of the Deep by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
REFERENCES
Yutyrannus description paper https://www.ivpp.ac.cn/sourcedb/zw/rck/yszj/202311/P020140314391160313630.pdf
Jehol Biota onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/gj.1045
Age of the Yixian Formation sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S003101820900217X?via%3Dihub
Orbital forcing causing cold winters sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018213002502?via%3Dihub
Temperature of the Yixian Formation pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3069172
Nihewan Formation onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/evan.21813
Nihewan Basin structure and climate nature.com/articles/srep02403
The Nihewan Fauna sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618222003810
Pachycrocuta behavior linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1040618211000115
Pachycrocuta pack behavior sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379121004479
Ursus etruscus omnivory sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018223005448?via%3Dihub
Ursus etruscus piscivory sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618215010253?via%3Dihub
Homotherium group behavior researchgate.net/publication/348754549_BEHAVIOUR_OF_HOMOTHERIUM_IN_THE_LIGHT_OF_MODERN_AFRICAN_BIG_CATS
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