The last part of our coverage from the 75th annual meeting of the society of vertebrate paleonology. In this part Caitlin speaks to Professor Christopher Smith about the history of the society, how it was recorded and archived, and how this information is being collected and maintained into the future.

In the second part of our SVP coverage we have interviews with some of the researchers on the scientific content of their posters and conference presentations.

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting is the largest conference each year for the world's vertebrate palaeontologists to present their work, network with each other, and find out what everyone else is up to. The first part of our coverage from the 2015 meeting in Dallas Texas includes interviews with palaeontology educators and museum specialists.

The ‘Crystal Palace Dinosaurs’ are a series of sculptures of extinct animals including dinosaurs, other extinct reptiles and mammals, which can be found in the grounds of the Crystal Palace in London. Commissioned in 1852, these are the earliest examples of dinosaur sculptures in the world. In fact, the first dinosaurs had only recently been discovered some 30 years earlier. Why were these models built? And what do they tell us about early scientific hypotheses of dinosaurs and other extinct animals? To answer these questions we talk Joe Cain, Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology at University College London.

Ankylosaurs are a group of non-avian dinosaurs best known for their armour, tank-like bodies, and sometimes large tail clubs. First appearing in the Jurassic, they were common in Late Cretaceous ecosystems, with several species known from around the world. But how different were these species really? And just where did they evolve from? What was that tail for?

Dr. Victoria Arbour of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is one of the leading experts on ankylosaurs, and has published a number of papers, including a recent study on how the tail club evolved. We spoke with Victoria about these dinosaurs and she answered some of these questions for us.

Melanin is a pigment that is found across the animal kingdom. Melanosomes, the organelles that contain melanin, have been found preserved in fossil feathers and melanosome shape has been used to infer the original colors of birds and dinosaurs. Today we’re talking to Caitlin Colleary whose paper - on her Masters research at the University of Bristol - delves into detail regarding the structural and chemical preservation of melanin and describes the color of a fossil mammal for the first time.

The Symposium of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy (SVPCA) annual conference was held at the University of Southampton National Oceanography Centre at the beginning of September. This is the first year we've covered this event, and covered a wide range of topics in vertebrate palaeontology. We spoke to several people, which you can listen to here, including information on Romanian and Hungarian fossils, ceratopsian dinosaurs, ankylosaur histology, sesamoid bones, and more.

Eurypterids, or ‘sea-scorpions’ are an extinct group of chelicerates: the group containing the terrestrial arachnids (such as spiders and scorpions) and the aquatic ‘merostomes’ (represented today solely by the horseshoe crabs). They bear a gross-morphological resemblance to scorpions (hence the informal name) but, in being aquatic, may have shared more in common with horseshoe crabs. They inhabited the waters of the Paleozoic Era and were typically scavengers or predators. Most eurypterids were quite small and unremarkable, but some genera, such as Pterygotus and Jaekelopterus grew to incredible sizes; the latter reached an estimated 2.5m (8’ 2”) and is still the world’s largest-known arthropod.

Described today in BMC- Evolutionary Biology is the oldest-yet-described eurypterid Pentecopterus decorahensis and we've got lead author Dr James Lamsdell, Yale University, to introduce us to the eurypterids and to discuss the significance of this new genus.

On today's episode we're revisiting Mistaken Point, Newfoundland, Canada. At this lagerstätte it is possible to find large bedding planes full of Precambrian organisms called rangeomorphs. These are an enigmatic group, which still can't be placed on the 'tree of life'.

We are joined by Dr Emily Mitchell of the University of Cambridge, who's recent paper in Nature was able to show that you don't need to be able to fully understand the anatomy of an organism to discern some of its most intricate details.

Synapsids are one of the major groups of terrestrial vertebrates. They first appear in the Carboniferous period and since that time have gone through many radiation and extinction events. But what did these first stem-mammals look like, how did they live and how do they differ from modern mammals? These may sound like simple questions, but there is an underrepresentation of terrestial deposits from the Permian. How then can we understand larger-scale evolutionary patterns when so much data is missing?