Podcast 324 - Pick Up the Pieces
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that use fragmentary fossils of animals to investigate the origins of major groups. The first paper describes an Early Ordovician eurypterid, and the second paper looks at mosaic evolutionary patterns in an early squamate. Meanwhile, James has bird opinions, Curt delights in not knowing, and Amanda will definitely be on time. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers that are using broken bits of things to learn a lot about animals from a long time ago. Both of these papers are looking at old animals that may give us new looks at how big...
info_outline
Podcast 323e - "All Sales Final" Part 5 - Another Satisfied Customer
Palaeo After Dark
The crew of the CS Perry struggle to extract themselves from their rapidly deteriorating situation. "Lightless Dawn" , "Spacial Harvest", and "Crypto" from Kevin MacLeod () Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
info_outline
Podcast 323d - "All Sales Final" Part 4 - The Milk Run
Palaeo After Dark
The crew of the CS Perry, now trapped in a space station run by multiple hostile AI, work to figure out how best to salvage a mission gone very wrong. "Lightless Dawn" and "Crypto" from Kevin MacLeod () Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
info_outline
Podcast 323c - "All Sales Final" Part 3 - The Hard Sell
Palaeo After Dark
The crew of the CS Perry begin the negotiation process for the CA-chip, but the sales team wants an arm and a leg for the product. "Lightless Dawn" and "Crypto" from Kevin MacLeod () Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
info_outline
Podcast 323b - "All Sales Final" Part 2 - A Representative Will Be With You Shortly
Palaeo After Dark
The crew of CS Perry were offered the perfect deal, a quick stop at an abandoned spaceport to grab some mothballed tech and they'd be set for life. What could possibly go wrong? "Lightless Dawn" from Kevin MacLeod () Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
info_outline
Podcast 323a - "All Sales Final" Part 1
Palaeo After Dark
For our holiday episodes this year, James, Curt, Amanda, and Ants get together to play a game of the space horror tabletop RPG Mothership. Join us for our introductory episode where we discuss the setting, rules, and the main characters of our story. "Lightless Dawn" from Kevin MacLeod () Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
info_outline
Podcast 322 - Obligatory Dinosaur Podcast 3: Dino With a Vengeance
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that are about dinosaurs, and that is all that connects them! The first paper investigates community structure during the Cretaceous, and the second paper describes a well preserved “mummy” of a duck-billed dinosaur. Meanwhile, Amanda is doing well (really she is now), Curt makes an awkward segue, and James has not seen Tremors. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers about big angry animals from a long time ago. The first paper looks at how many types of big angry animals were in a place before something bad happened and all the...
info_outline
Podcast 321 - Getting Mostly Stems Here
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that have very little in common with each except for the word “stem”. The first paper uses birth death models to simulate the fossil record in order investigate if neutral models can produce patterns similar to the “crown”/“stem” evolutionary dynamics that have been observed in real data. The second paper investigates stem mandibulate fossils to investigate the timing of major key innovations in the evolutionary history of this arthropod group. Meanwhile, Amanda decides, James bullies, and Curt explains. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends...
info_outline
Podcast 320 - von Herrerasaurus
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that investigate injuries in fossil bones. The first paper tests hypotheses about the causes of facial injuries in herrarasaurids, and the second paper tests if inferred hunting strategies map onto injury patterns in predators from the La Brea Tar Pits. Meanwhile, Curt provides some hypotheses, Amanda gets spiritual, and James is photogenic. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at why animals from a long time ago got hurt. The first paper looks at some very old and angry animals with no hair that all got hurt in the...
info_outline
Podcast 319 - CSI Crato Formation
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that use taphonomic experiments to test hypotheses about the paleo-environmental conditions of the Crato Formation. Meanwhile, Amanda has her daily requirements, James longs for the rack, Curt launched a new podcast concept, and no one on this podcast can keep to a topic for longer than five minutes. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at rocks that come from the same place. This place is a spot where you get a lot of soft things from animals in the rocks which would usually not be able to be in the rocks because they...
info_outlineThe gang ends “Wet Hot Archosaur Summer” with the final podcast recorded from our undisclosed location in the woods. For this podcast, we indulge Amanda by talking about birds and trace fossils. The first paper looks at the remains of nesting sites that date back to the Cretaceous, and the second paper investigates sources of error in estimates of avian maximum speeds from trace fossils. Meanwhile, Amanda has a message for the bears, James proposes an alliance with the crows, and Curt does an “homage”.
Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):
The friends talks about two papers that will make one of them very happy because they are all about the ways that animals that fly can make marks on the ground to let us know about how they move. The first paper looks at where these animals that fly will make their home. This paper shows that animals that fly have been found in this cold place near the top of the world for a really long time. This place would not have been as cold as it is today, but would have been dark for half the year. Some of the animals they find in this area look like they would have moved in when things were good and left when things got bad. This is something we see animals that fly do today in the top of the world as well.
The second paper looks at how we try and use how these animals make marks on the ground to see how fast they would move. The paper shows that the way we were doing it in the past kind of worked, but also didn't work. This is because when these animals that can fly move, they do not move in the same way as other animals all the time. And so the way that these things walk is important if we want to try and understand more about how fast they could move from the marks on the ground.
References:
Wilson, Lauren N., et al. "Arctic bird nesting traces back to the Cretaceous." Science 388.6750 (2025): 974-978.
Prescott, Tash L., et al. "Speed from fossil trackways: calculations not validated by extant birds on compliant substrates." Biology Letters 21.6 (2025): 20250191.