Did the t-Rex Ever Roam Tagaytay? A Jurassic Look at Prehistoric Philippines

Written By Julian Yu Noche
June 4, 2025

Way before karaoke nights and crispy lechon, the land beneath our feet was part of something wilder, think continental drift, volcanic chaos, and possibly... dinosaurs? The Jurassic period (about 201 to 145 million years ago) was when the Earth was basically a prehistoric rave: dinosaurs thriving, plants evolving, and the supercontinent Pangaea slowly falling apart.

Now, while the Philippines as an archipelago didn’t technically exist yet, geological clues suggest that chunks of land, microcontinental blocks that would one day become part of the islands, were already forming. That means it’s possible, just possible, that dinos could’ve passed through or even lived in parts of what would become our homeland (there is solid proof that dinosaurs did exist in nearby Thailand and Laos). So technically, no, fossils haven’t turned up… yet. But the tectonic storylines say it’s not totally out of the question.

So if you've ever imagined a T-Rex casually stomping through future-day Palawan... science might not fully shut that down. But here’s what we do know.

The current Philippine archipelago is situated on a complex tectonic setting composed of several microplates and terranes. During the Jurassic, the area was part of the eastern margin of the Eurasian plate, adjacent to the Pacific plate. Various geological formations in the Philippines—particularly in northern Luzon and the Visayas, contain rocks dating back to the Jurassic period, such as the Pugo Formation and Cual Formation in northern Luzon (Arcilla, 2000).

These rock formations suggest a marine-dominated environment, with the presence of sedimentary deposits like limestones, sandstones, and shales. This indicates that much of the area was submerged under shallow seas during the Jurassic, which shaped its marine ecosystem.

Due to the largely submerged condition of the area during the Jurassic, the ecosystem was likely dominated by:

• Marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs

• Ammonites, brachiopods, and other invertebrates

• Early marine fish and sharks

• Coral reefs and sponge ecosystems

• Coastal ferns, cycads, and conifers on uplifted or emergent islands

Illustration of the skeletal anatomy of a Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus from Conybeare's 1824 paper that described an almost complete plesiosaur skeletion found by Mary Anning in 1823. By William Conybeare - Transactions of the Geological Society of London (1824), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9379220

The sedimentary structures and fossils found in Jurassic-aged rock units across the region support the idea of a warm, shallow sea teeming with marine life, rather than terrestrial dinosaur habitats (Hashimoto et al., 2009).

To date, no confirmed dinosaur fossils have been discovered in the Philippines. This absence is likely due to several factors:

1. Subduction and Tectonic Activity: The Philippine plate and nearby microplates have undergone extensive tectonic movement and subduction, often recycling crustal material and destroying fossil evidence. So whatever proof there might have been would likely have been moved due to the heavy activity our geologic positioning presents.

2. Marine Deposits: Most of the preserved Jurassic rocks in the Philippines are marine in origin, making the preservation of terrestrial organisms unlikely (though some say not entirely impossible.)

3. Lack of Targeted Excavation: Paleontological exploration in the Philippines has been limited compared to other Southeast Asian countries.

However, nearby regions in Thailand, Laos, and China have yielded fossils of sauropods, stegosaurs, and theropods from the Jurassic period (Buffetaut & Suteethorn, 1999). This suggests that dinosaurs were likely present on nearby landmasses, and if any part of the Philippine region was emergent land, it could have hosted similar species.

Fossils from neighboring Southeast Asian countries provide insight into the types of dinosaurs that may have existed near the proto-Philippine region. Examples include:

By Slate Weasel - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95947089

• Phuwiangosaurus, a titanosauriform sauropod from Thailand (Suteethorn et al., 2009)

• Siamotyrannus, an early theropod possibly related to tyrannosaurids (Buffetaut et al., 1996)

Although these dinosaurs lived primarily in the Early Cretaceous, they evolved from Jurassic ancestors that likely roamed similar landscapes during earlier periods.

While the Philippine region during the Jurassic was predominantly submerged under shallow seas, its marine ecosystems likely flourished with diverse invertebrates and marine reptiles. The lack of dinosaur fossils in the Philippines does not preclude their ancient presence; instead, it underscores the need for more extensive paleontological research. Future discoveries in unexplored terrestrial deposits may yet uncover evidence of Jurassic dinosaurs in the archipelago.

And while we may not have T. rex fossils to dig up in Tagaytay just yet, the mystery is half the magic. The Philippines’ deep-time history reminds us that we’re part of a much larger story, one that began long before our ancestors, and one that continues to shift, move, and evolve beneath us.

So the next time you’re walking along a volcanic ridge or swimming off a coral coast back home, remember: the ground beneath you might just be 150 million years in the making. And who knows? Maybe one day, a Filipino fossil find will rewrite the dinosaur map entirely.

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Written By Julian Yu Noche
June 4, 2025

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