
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


This new discovery is WEIRD. Mirasaura (the 'marvellous lizard') has been described from the Triassic of France, and it has mad projections coming out of its back, far longer than its body. We take a look at what these projections were, and were not (i.e. not feathers), their implications for the evolution of integumentary structures, and our own historically bad haircuts.
The paper is "Triassic diapsid shows early diversification of skin appendages in reptiles" by Stephan Spiekman and colleagues, published in Nature in July 2025.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09167-9
Wide screen art: Gabriel Ugueto
By Robert Sansom and Susannah Maidment5
22 ratings
This new discovery is WEIRD. Mirasaura (the 'marvellous lizard') has been described from the Triassic of France, and it has mad projections coming out of its back, far longer than its body. We take a look at what these projections were, and were not (i.e. not feathers), their implications for the evolution of integumentary structures, and our own historically bad haircuts.
The paper is "Triassic diapsid shows early diversification of skin appendages in reptiles" by Stephan Spiekman and colleagues, published in Nature in July 2025.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09167-9
Wide screen art: Gabriel Ugueto

78,492 Listeners

5,544 Listeners

519 Listeners

825 Listeners

6,404 Listeners

742 Listeners

1,249 Listeners

3,138 Listeners

5,149 Listeners

112 Listeners

188 Listeners

3,272 Listeners

6 Listeners

246 Listeners

1,846 Listeners