Past Time

Antarctica is one of the great frontiers of paleontology. It’s been really far south for a long time, but it hasn’t always been frozen over. In February of 2016, a team of paleontologists and geologists set out on an expedition to the frozen continent in search of fossils from the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. Matt talked with two of the team members, Eric Gorscak and Patrick O’Connor both from Ohio University, about planning the expedition and what they hope to find at the bottom of the world. Follow the entire Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project (#AP3) team at www.antarcticdinos.org and @antarcticdinos!

Patrick O’Connor is a Professor of Anatomy and Neuroscience at the Ohio University. Here’s a link to his lab’s website. His research is focused on vertebrate evolution on the megacontinent of Gondwana, a giant landmass that broke up through the Mesozoic and beginning of the Cenozoic to become Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, Madagascar, and India. In addition to working in Antarctica, he has active field projects in Madagascar, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Egypt. He’s worked on weird Gondwanan dinosaurs like Majungasaurus, weird Gondwanan crocodiles like Pakasuchus, and weird Gondwanan mammals like Vintana.

Eric Gorscak is a Doctoral Candidate at Ohio University where his research is advised by Dr. O’Connor. Eric’s research is focused on the evolution of sauropod dinosaurs, the gigantic, long-necked, plant-eating dinosaurs that seem to defy the laws of physics and biology. As part of his dissertation, he’s trying to sort out how gigantic titanosaur sauropods found around the world are related to each other. His most recent study described a new Tanzanian titanosaur called Rukwatitian.

Pat, Eric, and the rest of the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project team want to figure out what was going on in Antarctica during Late Cretaceous, the last slice of time before the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. Most of what we kno

If you wander into the basement of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, and wander into the fossil collections, you will find a vast array of different dinosaurs dating back over 200 million years. However, just a few feet away from the oldest dinosaurs you will find several drawers filled with the bones of Raphus cucullatus: the dodo. These are not fossilized; the dodo has only been gone from the Earth for four hundred years, after all. Still, placing the dodo among all of the other extinct birds, alongside the dinosaurs seems perfectly appropriate to me.

As I mention in the episode, a dodo skeleton is not a common thing in museum collections. There are only a few skeletons that are nearly complete, most of which are preserved in European collections. Only one set of bones at the Oxford Museum of Natural History preserves the soft parts in a mummified state, and only of the head and the foot. As a matter of fact, we likely know less about the dodo than we do about some dinosaur species that have been extinct for more than sixty six million-years longer than the dodo. Moreover, scientists today are applying the same techniques and technologies used to understand the lives of fossil animals to answer questions about the life of the dodo.

Eugenia Gold is a scientist uniquely qualified to answer questions about this extinct species. She has engaged in a number of anatomical science projects, examining topics as varied as changes in shape during the life of crocodylians, the anatomy of the brain in the tyrannosaurid dinosaur Alioramus, and the evolution of bird brains! She’s got brains on the brain (I’m sure no one has e

It’s been a long time coming, but both Matt and I have completed our doctoral degrees at Stony Brook University. This is the end of a journey he and I began over six years ago, when we first moved to Long Island with dreams of becoming paleontologists. Since that time, we have learned a LOT about what exactly it means to be a paleontologist and the many paths that can be taken to reach that goal.

In this long-form episode, we do not feature a new discovery in paleontology or a natural history researcher. Instead, we tell a bit of our own stories: specifically, how we came to be at Stony Brook and what we were up to (other than Past Time) while we were there. We hope to give people a bit of guidance in making a decision to follow a career in paleontology.

I completed my dissertation research on the evolution of Triassic reptiles and presented it to the Department of Anatomical Sciences in June of 2015. Cathartic does not begin to describe the experience after my adviser told me that I had passed…there were so many times over the preceding years when I was certain it would never end. The dissertation project is so large that it can seem insurmountable at times…but it did come to an end. It comes to an end through persistence, but it also comes to an end because of collaboration.

I think collaboration is the primary theme of this episode, which we recorded just an hour and a half after Matt completed his dissertation defense. The goal of a dissertation is to address a scientific question from many different angles. However, addressing a scientific question is not something one can do alone. A student needs to be trained. A researcher needs access to specimens and technology. A person needs support and love from friends and family. Completing a project on this scale

It weighed twice as much as a modern wolf. It had three pairs of meat-slicing teeth. It was the first carnivorous land animal to reach 200 pounds on the entire continent of Europe after the extinction of the dinosaurs. And a team of European scientists and Past Time co-host Matthew Borths just introduced us to it. Ladies and gentlemen: meet Kerberos, monster mammal carnivore!

If you’re interested, read the full technical article about the new mammal, Kerberos,in the online journal Plos One

There are very few articles on creodonts online, like this one from UC Berkeley, mostly because they remain very mysterious.

Matt will have a LOT more to tell the world about creodont mammals after he completes his dissertation this Fall! If you get the chance, wish him luck in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter!

Arrr, ye mateys! Pour out some grog, and I’ll tell ye a tale of mines, beaches, and death in ancient jungles. I of course be talkin’…about salamanders!

Okay, not going to do that voice the whole time (though maybe it should be in the episode), but I will briefly present Palaeoplethodon hispaniolae, the first salamander in amber and the first ever found in the Caribbean! This discovery was spearheaded by George Poinar, Jr of Oregon State University (http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2015/aug/first-ever-discovery-salamander-amber-sheds-light-evolution-caribbean-islands) and David Wake of University of California Berkeley.

The Caribbean is home to many fossil sites that preserve amber, and Palaeoplethodon comes from a mine on the island of Hispaniola. Its age is a mystery, unfortunately, but it confirms without doubt that salamanders did live in the Caribbean some time in the past…a place where they do not exist today. We still have many mysteries to solve about how salamanders got to these islands and why they are not there any more…

Check out the scientific paper in the journal Palaeodiversity at http://www.palaeodiversity.org/pdf/08/03Palaeodiversity_8-15_Poinar-Wake_4.pdf for more pictures and data!