This is a B1-level short story in two parts.

Professor Mathew Pearson, a paleontologist and professor at Oxford University, made an incredible discovery when he found a skull. Tests are done and the results are extremely surprising...

Technical vocabulary in the story
Prehistory / A prehistoric scene
paleontology
fossils
The Jurassic period (finished 145 million years ago)
The Eocene period (finished 33m years ago)
skull
The prehistoric animal mentioned in the story is a sarkastodon.

B1 vocabulary I discuss at the beginning before the story starts
The weather forecast 
seriously hurting the planet
spectacularly beautiful buildings
A friend had introduced them to each other.
Christine had encouraged him to keep on going.
explain in detail
We must keep it a secret.
changed the subject
taking all this extremely seriously
Sorry, if I kept you waiting!
'I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,’ said Mathew.
There was an embarrassing pause.
without any doubt

Listen for these phrases and enjoy the story.

Contact Mike Bilbrough with a question or enquiry about advertising on Practising English Podcasts: https://www.practisingenglish.com/contact.htm

My NEW book: "B1 English Vocabulary Builder - 22 Short Stories for Learning the Words and Phrases Students Need to Pass the B1 Exam" is now available! This book gives the learner enough vocabulary to pass any B1 exam (special help for Cambridge exams).
To read more about my book, click here (you can access it from any Amazon platform):
https://amzn.to/46AVFe9

Learners studying towards B2 level will be interested in my B1 to B2 reader: The Tudor Conspiracy (includes audio version) https://amzn.to/4gPsj0i

For very young learners (from 8-10), I recommend my picture reader book for children learning A1 to A2 English. It comes with a fully dramatised audio version: https://amzn.to/46TCWvv

Oxford Bookworm Graded Readers: Read stories at your level to improve your English. I recommend Oxford Bookworms as the best series of books for learners: https://amzn.to/4r7YVHg

At https://www.practisingenglish.com/ I offer learners of intermediate-level English, free grammar help and exercises and other English learning pages.
https://www....