Podcast 310 - This Podcast Is Two Darth Vaders Tall
Palaeo After Dark
Wet Hot Archosaur Summer continues as the gang discusses two papers about crocodylomorph evolution. The first paper looks at the impact mass extinctions had on disparity within the group, and the second paper uses new phylogenetic data to revise our understanding of size trends and biogeography of crocodylomorphs during the Cenozoic. Meanwhile, Curt invents a measurement, James invents a new way of eating, and Amanda invents a new phobia for herself. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at big angry animals that you should never smile at, again! This...
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Podcast 309 - Wet Hot Archosaur Summer Begins
Palaeo After Dark
The gang kicks off a summer of archosaurs by talking about crocodyliforms. The first paper describes an early Cenozoic large notosuchian, and the second paper investigates how cryptic species impacts divergence times within the clade. Meanwhile, Curt diagnoses a problem, James tries to “help”, and Amanda does not care. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at animals that today most of the time live in water and grab food from the edge of the water and you should never smile at. The first paper a really big one of these animals that lived a long...
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Podcast 308 - Failing to Talk About the K/Pg Mass Extinction
Palaeo After Dark
The gang tries to discuss two papers that look at the evolutionary impacts of the K-Pg mass extinction. Specifically, they look at one paper that estimates sampling probability throughout the late Cretaceous to determine if record bias influences our understanding of the extinction, and another paper that looks at species area relationships to investigate ecological shifts in response to the event. However, the gang gets completely lost and sidetracked throughout. They starting talking about the papers around 18 minutes in… and very quickly lose track again. It’s going to be one of those...
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Podcast 307 - Glow in the Dark Shrew Jorts
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that look at the evolutionary impact of shifts in habitat occupation. The first paper looks at a clade of sharks moving into the depths, and the second paper investigates habitat shifts in mammals across the Cretaceous and Paleogene. Meanwhile, Amanda has some opinions, James is doing much better, and Curt is easy to amuse. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look into how animals change when they move from one type of place to another. The first paper looks at animals with big teeth that has soft parts inside and live in...
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Podcast 306 - Birbs Grinding on the Edge of the Pareto Front
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that use morphometrics to investigate patterns of selection on bird morphology. The first paper looks at the morphology of feathers, while the second paper looks more broadly at various parts of the avian body. Meanwhile, James breathes new life into a classic, Amanda is passionate about formatting, and Curt exposes “the truth”. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at animals that move in the air. Both of these papers look at how these animals look and try to find out why these animals look the way they do. The first...
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Podcast 305 - Skin in the Game
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that look at preserved skin/external tissues. The first paper shows a unique record of Cambrian molting, and the second paper looks at the first preserved samples of plesiosaur skin. Meanwhile, Amanda commits an "own goal”, Curt shares some old internet fun, and James has opinions about fins. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at skin that is very very very old. The first paper looks at animals from a long time ago that lose their skin when they get too big for it when then grow. They found these parts on the skin...
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Podcast 304 - Getting the Timing Right
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that look into the evolution and timing of key morphological innovations within animal groups. The first paper describes possible raptorial appendages in fossil artiopods, and the second paper finds early evidence of modern bird morphologies in the Jurassic. Meanwhile, Amanda gloats, Curt dies, and James eulogizes. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends look at two papers where one friend can feel better about how they do the work than how other people do the work. One paper is about big face hand animals with many parts to their legs that use...
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Podcast 303 - When Is It The Crown
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that look into the timing of evolution of the “crown group”. The first paper looks at fossil glass sponges, and the second paper looks at the phylogeny of lampreys. Meanwhile, James gives some sound advice, Amanda has ambitious hobby plans, and Curt imagines the perfect media crossover. Up-Goer Five: (Curt Edition) The friends talk about two papers that look at groups of animals and try to see when the things that we see today in these groups may have first happened in the past and what we can tell us about why those things might have happened. The...
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Podcast 302 - A Rambling Homage to Vrba
Palaeo After Dark
The gang celebrates the research of the late Elisabeth Vrba by talking about two of her papers, as well as her research more broadly. And, despite their best efforts, they get easily distracted on tangentially related side discussions. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers from someone who they want to remember the memory of because that person is no longer with us. They talk a lot about this person's work, and some other things that come up as they are talking. The big things these two papers look at are how small things working together can build things that...
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Podcast 301 - You Little Punk
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that look at some exceptional soft-tissue preservation during the Silurian. The first paper potentially identifies a unique type of pterobranch, and the second paper looks at some early molluscs. Meanwhile, James has seen some movies, Amanda has a skibidi day, and Curt’s soul dies. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two animals from a long time ago that are only found as soft parts and that makes it hard to find the parts of them that were in the ground a long long time ago. The first paper looks at an animal that is not well known in...
info_outlineThe gang discusses two papers that look into long term trends in body size over time. The first paper looks at body size trends in corals, and the second looks at body size and ecology of terror birds. Meanwhile, James loses a bit of himself, Amanda is bad at transitions, and Curt goes places no one wants to go.
Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):
The friends talk about two papers that look at how big things are and how that changes over time. The first paper looks at tiny animals that live together in a group and share their homes with even smaller living things that help give them food. It turns out that being small makes it good for the smaller things living with them. So this paper wants to see if these animals have been getting smaller over time. Turns out that it is not that easy, and that some of these earlier animals were bigger than today but probably did have even smaller living things with them helping them. But it seems like there is some bit of these animals getting smaller, so maybe these animals have gotten better at building homes for these even smaller living things.
The second paper looks at big angry animals that are close to things that can fly but these big angry animals could not fly. This paper looks to see if these animals lived at the same time and did the same things and were as big as each other, or do we see these animals doing different things at the same time or with one of them being bigger than the other. They find that most of the time, when there are two of these animals living at the same time, they are either doing different things or one of them is much bigger than the other. The paper says this shows that these animals were trying not to fight each other for the same stuff, but the friends have other questions about what could be going on.
References:
LaBarge, Thomas W., Jacob D. Gardner, and Chris L. Organ. "The evolution and ecology of gigantism in terror birds (Aves, Phorusrhacidae)." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 291.2021 (2024): 20240235.
Dimitrijević, Danijela, Nussaïbah B. Raja, and Wolfgang Kiessling. "Corallite sizes of reef corals: decoupling of evolutionary and ecological trends." Paleobiology 50.1 (2024): 43-53.