Terrible Lizards

Evolution

In one way it's more than a bit late to only talk about evolution when we are 6 and a bit series into Terrible Lizards and this should arguably have been episode 1 in series 1 but here we are. Evolution is the foundation for modern biology and the understanding that species and lineages change over time and also how that happens allows us to interpret those changes patterns. While we barely mention dinosaurs this episode and while we also soon go off the rails and end up talking about some odd bits of evolution and even (shudder) genetics, the core concept of how evolution works is really worth going over as it's the framework for everything else we talk about. Hopefully this one will be illuminating.

Links:

An old post of Dave's trying to get the most comprehensive description of natural selection into the fewest words. It might well be worth reading as a primer for this episode: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/natural-selection-stripped-down/

And a short post about variation: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/variation-and-selection/

We've already mentioned Gigantoraptor this series so let's get down to the other end of the etymological scale and look at Microraptor. This little dromaeosaur was one of the first fully feathered dinosaurs to be found and is famous for its 'four wings' with long flight feathers on the legs and the arms. There's loads of good specimens of this animal so it is perhaps no surprise that there has been lots of research on it and, by extension, lots of arguments about its lifestyle, evolution and especially, how well it could fly.

This week we are joined by Kobi Omenaka @kobestarr https://stripped.media/ who asks Dave about many dino appearances in film BUT crucially, what IS Godzilla?

Links:

A blogpost of Dave's on Microraptor feathers: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/heads-and-tails-microraptor-feathers/

And a much longer one about feather attachment and preservation: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/microraptor-in-uv-and-feather-attachment/

At various times in previous episodes we have talked about what various dinosaurs ate and bits of data about diet, but this time we're going to take a more systematic look at how palaeontologists work out the diet of ancient animals. We go through the obvious ones like sharp teeth and finding bits of stuff inside them to microscopic traces of damage on the enamel, the structure of teeth and elemental isotopes that linger for a hundred million years. All good clean fun (unless you are the dinosaur being shredded by a hungry carcharodontosaur).

We don't have a guest this week - so there is no better time to find @Iszi_lawrence and @Dave_hone on social media (use #terriblelizards) and stalk us. Also don't forget to check out our Patreon many thanks!

Links:

An old blogpost by Dr John Whitlock on wear marks on teeth and how that can be used to work out the diet of sauropods: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/guest-post-grazing-giants-sauropod-feeding/

A post about Dave's paper describing a Velociraptor that ate (part of) a large pterosaur: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/velociraptor-scavenging-azhdarchid/

Back to dinosaurs so you can relax (though the pterosaurs will return next series). This time out, we are going with the oviraptorosaurs - and note the long name, it's not just oviraptors we are covering. As is common, the one famous member of this group tends to hog the limelight and not everyone knows about the others even if these days Gigantoraptor tends to sneak in in the background. These feathered theropods are rather bird like but thanks to them (probably) largely being herbivorous they tend to get overlooked with the more exciting dromaeosaurs taking the spotlight away from them, so it's time to try and redress that.

This week we do have a guest and we are joined by comedian Eleanor Morton who asks Dave about Scottish Dinosaurs and their movements.

Links:

A couple of photos of a great caegnathid cast at the Carnegie museum: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/an-oviraptorosaur/

And a piece by Scott Persons on dinosaurs tails but featuring a superb oviraptorid skeleton: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/guest-post-raptor-tails-declassified/

Series 6? That can't be right. Surely this is 3 or 4 or something, 5 at the outside. Blimey. Anyway, we are back and we have new episodes though we are cheating already by starting with a pterosaur and talking about the greatly underappreciated Rhamphorhynchus. As the only vaguely well-known long-tailed pterosaur it is shown in the background of every Jurassic dinosaur painting to give scale the sauropods no matter how far inland or on the wrong continent or time it may be. It is though, as usual, much more interesting than people give it credit for and it's very well studied and well understood so it's a shame it doesn't get the attention it deserves. Dave likes it so much he went on about the growth, tail, beak, wings and more until we'd recorded enough that we didn't have a guest so just pterosaurs this week!

Links:

Blogpost about Dave's paper on growth in Rhamphorhynchus: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2020/07/08/how-to-grow-your-dragon-pterosaur-onotgeny/

Blogpost about decaying pterosaurs: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/soft-tissues-and-pterosaur-taphonomy-but-not-as-you-might-expect/

Link to the paper on Rhamphorhynchus stomach contents and coprolite: https://peerj.com/articles/1191/

A slightly silly intro to series 6 of Terrible Lizards, a podcast about dinosaurs which will be starting on Wednesday 9th of February 2022. (The guest on this clip is Dr Steve Cross).

We talk to Yara Haridy who has just completed her PhD on the histology of dinosaurs and other reptiles.

On the podcast we normally just talk about whole bones and skeletons (or at least the bits of them that are preserved) but there is an enormous amount of information that is preserved in the fossilised cellular structures of these. Fossil bones are those that have turned to rock but that means that the original cellular structures are in there and these can reveal and whole host of information about the growth and physiology of ancient animals. Yara takes us through these and how we actually extract this information from bones that are hundreds of millions of years old.

Links:

Yara's websites with links to all her projects: https://ko-fi.com/yaraharidy and http://www.thebarebones.org

Are there dinosaurs on the moon? What are digs in Antarctica like? Dave Hone and iszi Lawrence answer your dinosaur Questions! At the end of each series Iszi and Dave trawl through all the comments and messages from our listeners. We answer questions from Elaine, Michelle, Lee, Hunter, Sabina, Phil, David, Leo & Quantum Robin (Kristjan), Russell, Shuyi, Steve, and Craig!

If you want to hear us answer more questions you can also find us on YouTube and you can watch Dave roll his eyes at Iszi's brilliant ideas. https://www.youtube.com/c/iszitube

Find more content on patreon.com/terriblelizards

@iszi_lawrence

@Dave_hone

With every big new paper or museum exhibition there will be artwork depicting dinosaurs as actual living animals, as well as all kinds of other representations of these animals be it pop-art or cartoons. Today we have a special with an extended chat to two artists who specialise in dinosaurs and make their living from producing images of these animals. They are Danielle Dufault who works for the Royal Ontario Museum and Natee Himmapaan who is an independent artist in London. We discuss the very concept of palaeoart and the roles of artists in communicating science to the public, as well as the explosion of interest and new artists in recent years.

Dave's archive of interviews with palaeoartists:

https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/palaeoart-roundup/

Natee's old blog (with numerous images): https://himmapaan.wordpress.com

Danielle's website: https://www.ddufault.com

Way back in the mists of time (last year) we did a whole podcast on Triceratops, one of the most famous dinosaurs of all. But is Triceratops not all it seems and is it in fact just part of a growth series which results in the largest and oldest animals becoming another dinosaur entirely in Torosaurus? The answer is no, but the reasons why this was proposed and why it's not the case are interesting in themselves and so we give over this episode to the ideas of changing dinosaurs and what we know about this. Then we get joined by Jay Foreman who asks… well lots but I don't know what questions Iszi edited in when I wrote this.

Links:

An old blogpost that covers some of the issues Dave and Iszi discuss well: https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/age-changes-you-torosaurus-actually-just-old-triceratops/

An article on 'Tiny' the Torosaurus: https://www.anythinklibraries.org/spark/tiny-torosaurus

A link to Andy Farke's paper on Nedoceratops with some great photos of this weird specimen: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/cf50/7b4ce1751fdf11399bd7971f60da5857fda3.pdf

https://www.jayforeman.co.uk/

www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

@iszi_lawrence

@dave_hone