For this episode of The Backpacker’s Guide To Prehistory, host David Mountain is setting his time machine for the distant Ordovician period, 485-444 million years ago. Dive into oceans teeming with long-lost wildlife, from trilobites to orthocones to the nightmarish conodonts.

Providing some much-needed travel tips are Dr Lucy McCobb, a palaeontologist at the National Museum Cardiff (https://museum.wales/staff/184/Lucy-McCobb/) and Prof Dave Harper, Professor Emeritus of Palaeontology at Durham University (https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/david-harper/). If you want to learn more about the Ordovician world then be sure to check out their research!

Follow the podcast on Twitter @prehistoryguide. Find out more at prehistoryguide.co.uk.

Sound effects from Zapsplat.com.