Palaeo After Dark

The gang discusses two papers that deal with the evolution of tardigrades. The first paper looks at some fossil tardigrades in amber, and the second paper looks to the Cambrian to determine the ancestors of modern tardigrades. Meanwhile, Amanda confuses some details about medication, James has some money making crab solutions, and Curt is somehow the one person trying to keep people on track.

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

The friends look at two papers that look at a group of animals that are very very very small and have been seen as cute by a lot of people even though you can not really see them without help. The first paper finds some of these very very small animals in bits that come out of things that grow big and make their own food. These bits get hard when they get covered in ground over a long time and things that get stuck in the stuff can be there. This paper looks at these old very very small animals and tries to see what they could be like. It also talks about how we might not have as good an idea of these animals because they are so small and we do not always look for small things in these kinds of places.

The second paper looks at the older things that might be great great great great mom and dad to the tiny animals today. These animals are much bigger and much much older. This paper shows that lots of things we see in these tiny animals today may have been parts that we see in these older animals. But also, that in order to get so very very very small, these animals may have lost some parts so that they could get that small.

References:

Kihm, Ji-Hoon, et al. "Cambrian lobopodians shed light on the origin of the tardigrade body plan." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120.28 (2023): e2211251120.

Mapalo, Marc A., et al. "A tardigrade in Dominican amber." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 288.1960 (2021): 20211760.

The gang discusses two papers that look at the gut contents and traces of ancient animals. The first paper reconstructs gut traces (or lack thereof) for Ediacarans and then the second paper looks at the detailed gut contents and 3d track of a lichid trilobite. Meanwhile, Amanda's cat is changing careers, James is feeling "motivated", and Curt has some house improvement recommendations.

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

The friends talk about the insides of different animals from a long long time ago. The first paper looks at animals from a long long time ago that do not look much like things we see today. There is a lot of talk about how these animal would eat and where the food would go when they did eat. This paper looks at the parts that remain and looks over the things that are left behind to see if they can find out what the insides of these things were like. What they find is that the things we think are more like things we see today all have insides where the food goes. The one really strange thing does not and could have had food move into it along its outside.

The second paper looks at a small animal with many parts that makes a hard home. This paper finds the food that it ate in its insides and can use it to see what the insides look like. This is a great way for us to see the insides where the food goes in a group that is not around anymore. Also, the food in the insides lets us know how this animal ate things and the way it ate is strange when we look at things today. This thing ate hard things but it did it in a way that is not like what we see today. Also, this animal may have been getting ready to grow but did not make it.

References:

Kraft, Petr, et al. "Uniquely preserved gut contents illuminate trilobite palaeophysiology." Nature (2023): 1-7.

Bobrovskiy, Ilya, et al. "Guts, gut contents, and feeding strategies of Ediacaran animals." Current Biology 32.24 (2022): 5382-5389.

The gang discusses two papers that look at the provide clues to the modern biogeographic distribution of species, specifically bees and new world monkeys. Meanwhile, Amanda shares something, James finds out about where's the beef in more ways than one, and Curt invents a band.

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

The friends talk about two papers that look at where animals live and how those animals got to those places. The first paper looks at group of small animals that fly and go to things that grow their own food and picks up parts of them when looking for food that helps these things that grow their own food make more of themselves. A long time ago, people had an idea that all of these small animals that fly came from one place and them moved to other places. No one had done a big paper using computers to see if this was true. This paper uses computers and finds that it does seem to be true.

The second paper looks at small animals that move in trees and can not fly but are closer to people than lots of other animals. This group came from across a big blue wet thing. However, lots of people wonder how they got across the big blue wet thing. This paper looks at new parts of these animals and sees that maybe these animals got across the big blue wet thing a lot of times. This might mean that at some times in the past it was easier for some of these small animals to make it across that big blue wet thing.

References:

Almeida, Eduardo AB, et al. "The evolutionary history of bees in time and space." Current biology 33.16 (2023): 3409-3422.

Marivaux, Laurent, et al. "An eosimiid primate of South Asian affinities in the Paleogene of Western Amazonia and the origin of New World monkeys." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120.28 (2023): e2301338120.

The gang discusses two papers that look at fossils of the early whale group Basilosauridae. Specially, these papers describe the largest whale recovered from this group, as well as the smallest whale from the group. Meanwhile, Amanda has a lovely home, James has some whale facts, and Curt has some art critiques.

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

The friends talk about two papers that look at one group of big animals that breathe air but move in the water that are no longer around today. These papers are looking at different animals within the same group. The cool thing about both of these papers is that they talk about the same thing, but from different ways of looking at it. This is because one of these papers is about the biggest animal that people have found in this group and the other paper is about the smallest animal found in this group. This is a big thing because this is a group that today has gotten really big and the reasons why these groups get big has been something people are really interested in. These papers show that these animals were getting both big and small very early on in the group.

References:

Bianucci, Giovanni, et al. "A heavyweight early whale pushes the boundaries of vertebrate morphology." Nature (2023): 1-6.

Antar, Mohammed S., et al. "A diminutive new basilosaurid whale reveals the trajectory of the cetacean life histories during the Eocene." Communications Biology 6.1 (2023): 707.

The gang discusses two papers that investigate the feeding strategies of ancient animals, including a fossil stingray and an ancient bird. Meanwhile, James is recovering, Curt refuses to do his job, and Amanda is in podcast heaven but teetering over podcast hell. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers that looks into what old animals that are long dead would eat. The first paper looks at the teeth of a group of animals that move through the water like waves and have a long back part. Animals in this group today eat lots of different things. In the past, we do not know what these animals would eat so we do not know the ways in which these animals have changed to better eat the things they eat. This paper finds an old animal with teeth and body parts and finds that this thing could break hard things with its teeth, but also that it moved through the water in a different way than the animals today that break hard things. The second paper looks at hard things in the stomach of an old animal that flies. This animal has a lot of questions about what it would eat. This paper finds that the hard things in the stomach show that this animal was eating green things that make their own food. This animal was not just eating the soft easy to eat things like sweet parts that hold the things that make new green things, but also the leaves as well. References: Marramà, Giuseppe, et al. "The evolutionary origin of the durophagous pelagic stingray ecomorph." Palaeontology 66.4 (2023): e12669. Wu, Yan, et al. "Intra-gastric phytoliths provide evidence for folivory in basal avialans of the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota." Nature Communications 14.1 (2023): 4558.

The gang discusses two papers that use Blender 3d modeling techniques (and other functional morphology techniques) to study arthropod morphology. The first paper looks at trilobite enrollment and the second paper looks at the anomalocaris great frontal appendages. Meanwhile, James likes horses, Amanda has some name ideas, and Curt fails to segue.

Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition):

Today our friends look at two papers that talk about things with legs that have many parts. The first paper looks at very old pretty large things with mouth legs that people can't decide if they were strong or not strong. The paper does lots of computer stuff to figure out just how strong the mouth legs are. They find that the mouth legs are not as strong as people thought they might be and so they did not eat things with very hard parts, probably, but things that were not hard at all. The second paper looks at how cute little things with legs that have many parts might have made themselves into balls. There are many ways that they might have made themselves into balls, with the way the head fits with the back end. They think only one or two were very good, and that it might have changed as the cute little things with legs that have many parts grew up.

References:

Esteve, Jorge, and Nigel C. Hughes. "Developmental and functional controls on enrolment in an ancient, extinct arthropod." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 290.2000 (2023): 20230871.

Bicknell, Russell DC, et al. "Raptorial appendages of the Cambrian apex predator Anomalocaris canadensis are built for soft prey and speed." Proceedings of the royal society B 290.2002 (2023): 20230638.

The gang discusses two papers that looks at mammal jaws and teeth. The first paper uses many different analyses to study how the mammal jaw evolved, and the second paper looks at a unique set of teeth in a fossil whale group. Meanwhile, Curt gets ideas from Mortal Kombat, James has discusses farming practices, and Amanda finds any excuse to be fabulous. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at how mouths for animals with hair have changed over time. The first paper looks at the bottom hard part of the mouth to see how it first started and how it has changed and why it changed. Lots of people have ideas about this, but this paper is the first attempt to really look at this problem for a lot of different ways of handling it. They do a lot of things that are very number heavy to look at how these hard parts are able to move, and they look at a lot of parts from living and long dead things. What they find is that the bottom mouth parts of animals with hair are not as good as we thought. They are hard so they do not break, but other animals have bottom mouth parts that are easier to use and quicker. Because animals with hair make their bottom mouth from just one hard part, it may have made it easier for them to get many different teeth in the mouth. This is a story that has a lot more parts than just, "animals with hair had better everything so that is why there are now a lot of them" and instead shows that some changes were not "better" but may have opened doors to other ways to use a mouth (like many different teeth in the same mouth). The second paper looks at one animal with hair that moves through the water and has some very weird teeth that push out the front of the mouth. But first, the paper needs to see if these are really teeth. Some long teeth like things are found in other animals with hair, but these long things do not have all the parts to be teeth. When they look at this animal, they see that these are actually really long teeth. This is interesting because teeth can be more hurt by things than the long teeth like things. So if these are teeth, what did they do with them? They do not have breaks and they would not be good for moving through the ground looking for food, so the people who wrote the paper think they might be used to cut food. References: Tseng, Z. Jack, et al. "A switch in jaw form–function coupling during the evolution of mammals." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 378.1880 (2023): 20220091. Coste, Ambre, R. Ewan Fordyce, and Carolina Loch. "A new dolphin with tusk-like teeth from the late Oligocene of New Zealand indicates evolution of novel feeding strategies." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 290.2000 (2023): 20230873.

The gang discusses two papers that look at examples of unusually large animals in the fossil record; one large lacewing larvae and one very large skink. Meanwhile, James is having a great day, Amanda starts a chant, and Curt learns the true meaning of "cool fossil bro".

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

The friends look at two papers about things that are big for what they are. The first paper is a type of kid of an animal that is small thing that flies when it is grown but does not fly when it is a kid. These animals have a neck when they are kids which some of these animals do not have. This animal has a really long body and a really long neck. They found it in water, so they think this animal would have been a big thing living in the water and eating things that it caught with its long neck.

The second paper looks at another group of animals with cold blood and hard bits on its skin that runs around on four legs. This animal is really big for its group. Parts of this animal were found before, but they were smaller and so they were thought to be something else. This paper finds new parts that show those are parts are from this bigger thing when it was a kid. This big animal is close to another animal that is around today. When this bigger animal died, the smaller animal it is close to came into the same places and seems to have taken its place.

References:

Du, Xuheng, Kecheng Niu, and Tong Bao. "Giant Jurassic dragon lacewing larvae with lacustrine palaeoecology represent the oldest fossil record of larval neuropterans." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 290.1993 (2023): 20222500.

Thorn, Kailah M., et al. "A giant armoured skink from Australia expands lizard morphospace and the scope of the Pleistocene extinctions." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 290.2000 (2023): 20230704.

The gang discusses two papers that look at the ecomorphology of Mesozoic swimming reptiles. The first paper investigates swimming strategies in various marine swimming reptile groups, and the second paper looks at changes in the skull of mosasaurs compared to stem whales. Meanwhile, James has a meal, Amanda "makes" animals, and Curt needs more insight.

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

The friends look at two papers that look at how big angry animals that move through the water lived a long time ago. The first paper looks at how these big animals moved through the water, because there are many ways that an animal can move through water. They use numbers to look at how these animals look, and they also use some animals from today that move through water to see if the way they look is like the ones from the past. They find that there are some ways that animals look with their bodies that change how they move through the water. This shows a lot of cool things. Some groups start moving through water in one way and over time move to a different way. This shows that there was a lot of different ways these groups of big angry animals were able to move through the water.

The second paper looks at the heads of one group of big angry animals from the past that move through water and also an old group of big animals with hair that move through water that are still around today. The paper wants to see if both of these groups do the same things with their heads since they are both moving into moving through water. They find that a few of the heads kind of look like each other between these two groups, which could be that they were trying to eat the same things. However, most of the time these two groups are not looking the same in the head. This is because these two groups come from different things and so they are not able to change their head in the same way.

References:

Gutarra, Susana, et al. "The locomotor ecomorphology of Mesozoic marine reptiles." Palaeontology 66.2 (2023): e12645.

Bennion, Rebecca F., et al. "Convergence and constraint in the cranial evolution of mosasaurid reptiles and early cetaceans." Paleobiology 49.2 (2023): 215-231.

The gang discusses two papers that look at the impact of humans on bird populations. The first paper looks at the history of a condor nesting site in the Andes, and the second paper looks at the impact of artificial light on the circadian rhythms of urban bird populations. Meanwhile, James is highly engaged, Curt tries to sell some property, Amanda finds something slightly more horrifying, and everyone is in the presence of ALAN.

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

The friends look at how people have made life different for small animals that fly in the air and some of them make sweet sounds. The first paper looks at the home for one type of these animals that is pretty big and eats things that are dead. These animals have been using this home for a really long time, and we can look at their shit (yes this is the only word I can use) to see what they ate in the past and also see how long they have been there. A long time ago, their shit shows that they ate a lot of things from the big blue wet thing, probably lots of big animals that have hair and move through the water. When people started to kill these big animals, these animals that fly started to eat less of them. We can even see when these animals started to eat things that people from across a different big blue wet thing brought with them to eat. This shows that these homes are used for very long time, and so making sure that these animals can get to these homes and that the homes are safe is important to keeping them living.

The second paper looks at how some small animals that fly sleep and if being in a city makes these animals sleep at different times or for longer or shorter. The idea is that the city has a lot more light than the woods and can make it harder to get to sleep. The paper looks at these animals living in the woods and animals living in the city. It first looks at their homes to see how much time they spend in their homes. They find that both groups of animals spend about the same time in their homes. City animals get out of their homes earlier in the day, but that seems to be that they are also setting up their home earlier in the year and need to get out to get stuff for the home. They then take these animals and they put them in a dark room to see how much they move with no change in light. They find the woods animals start moving less right away, but the city animals take longer before they start moving less. This could be because the room has low light and the animals from the city are more used to that, or it could be that the animals from the city are more used to being in bad spots. Either way, it shows that these animals are showing changes to work around the light from the city.

References:

Duda, Matthew P., et al. "A 2200-year record of Andean Condor diet and nest site usage reflects natural and anthropogenic stressors." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 290.1998 (2023): 20230106.

Tomotani, Barbara M., Fabian Timpen, and Kamiel Spoelstra. "Ingrained city rhythms: flexible activity timing but more persistent circadian pace in urban birds." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 290.1999 (2023): 20222605.