Palaeocast

This year, the 76th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology was held in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. We sent Liz and Caitlin there to report on events at the conference.

Graptolites are small colonial organisms, each made up of many tiny, genetically identical zooids joined together by tubes. They've been around since the Cambrian and at times in Earth's history have been very morphologically and taxonomically diverse. Now there is just one living genus, but they are very common in the fossil record, often appearing as a 'sawtooth' pattern flattened on surfaces of deep sea sedimentary rocks. In this episode Laura talks to Dr David Bapst, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis and adjunct assistant professor at the South Dakota School of Mines, about extinct graptolites - the Graptoloidea - and how these animals have changed in the 520 million years since they originated. We find out about major events in their evolutionary history including the transition from sea-floor dwelling benthic species to plankton that floated in the water column, and the reduction through geological time of the number of branches from many branching dendritic forms to the single 'stick' monograptids.

The last 10 years has shown a large increase in the number of new species and new discoveries of dinosaurs, as well as the number of papers written. It seems that almost every week there is a new species or significant find in the news. Why is that? Is this likely to continue? What can we expect for the next 10 years? We sat down with Dr. David Evans, Temerity Chair in Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum and Associate Professor at the University of Toronto to talk about this so-called ‘Golden Age of Dinosaur Discovery’. Dr. Evans is a well known dinosaur palaeontologist who has worked on many groups all over the world, focusing particularly in southern Alberta and the US.

Plants, Animals and fungi; these are all three of the Kingdoms of life we’re all most familiar with, but what you might not know is that fungi are more closely related to animals than they are to plants. Stranger still is that the vast majority of terrestrial plants live in a symbiotically with fungi. In this episode, we interview Prof. Marc-André Selosse, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. We discuss this symbiotic relationship and how it helped both groups overcome the massive challenge of adapting to life on land. We further go on to look at exquisitely-preserved fossils which display cellular details and reveal the first evidence of this relationship and discuss the potential identity of a particularly enigmatic giant fossil. We end the conversation theorising about what benefits a true understanding of this symbiosis could have on the future of agriculture. This relationship between plants and fungi is something that has shaped the evolution of life on land and so this discussion is most defini

The Bighorn Basin in Wyoming has been an important area for research into terrestrial ecosystems for decades. The basin formed as part of the uprising of the Rocky Mountains in the west of North America, and sediment from the surrounding mountain ranges was transported into it for millions of years, building up a huge thickness that has fossils from all kinds of life on land preserved within it. Rocks from many different time periods are now exposed in the basin, but a particularly important one is the Paleocene Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) which occurred around 56 million years ago. At this time a huge amount of carbon was released into the atmosphere very quickly, causing a sharp (by geological standards) increase in temperature and dramatic effects on life. Palaeontologists and geologists are particularly interested in studying the PETM as it can potentially give us lots of information about how life and earth systems might respond in the near future to the large quantities of carbon being released into o

Blue Beach is a locality in Nova Scotia, Canada that is well known for it's fossils from the Lower Carboniferous. In particular, it is significant for being one of few sites in the world that has fossils from this time period, known as 'Romer's Gap', significant for it's apparent lack of tetrapod fossils, despite the presence of animals like Ichthyostega and Acanthostega before this time. Significant work in recent years has been done on Romer's Gap, including on the tetrapod fossils found at Blue Beach. In this episode, we spoke to University of Calgary Associate Professor Jason Anderson about these tetrapod fossils from Blue Beach, an area he has been working on for many years. Jason and others published a paper in 2015 on some of the early tetrapod finds from Blue Beach.

Mongolia is a vast country with fossils from almost every period in the history of life. Important specimens representing the origin of birds, the origin of mammals, many unique dinosaur species, and the first dinosaur eggs to be identified, have all been found within it’s borders. For this reason it has long been the focus of field expeditions by Mongolian and international academics, but the remote nature of many of the sites has lead to fossil trafficking – where Mongolian specimens are illegally shipped out of the country, often labelled as something else entirely. In this episode we speak to Bolortsetseg Minjin, a Mongolian palaeontologist who is helping bring many important stolen specimens back home, including the tyrannosaur Tarbosaurus bataar. We chat to her, and her colleague Thea Boodhoo, about the history of palaeonotlogy in Mongolia, and about several projects they are running to spread knowledge to Mongolian people about the importance of the rich natural history heritage of their country. We a

Mongolia is a vast country with fossils from almost every period in the history of life. Important specimens representing the origin of birds, the origin of mammals, many unique dinosaur species, and the first dinosaur eggs to be identified, have all been found within it’s borders. For this reason it has long been the focus of field expeditions by Mongolian and international academics, but the remote nature of many of the sites has lead to fossil trafficking – where Mongolian specimens are illegally shipped out of the country, often labelled as something else entirely. In this episode we speak to Bolortsetseg Minjin, a Mongolian palaeontologist who is helping bring many important stolen specimens back home, including the tyrannosaur Tarbosaurus bataar. We chat to her, and her colleague Thea Boodhoo, about the history of palaeonotlogy in Mongolia, and about several projects they are running to spread knowledge to Mongolian people about the importance of the rich natural history heritage of their country. We al

“Saurian is a video game focused on providing the most captivating prehistoric experience ever developed for commercial gaming: living like a true dinosaur in a dynamic open world through intense, survival based gameplay. Players will have the opportunity to take control of several different species of dinosaur in their natural environment. You will attempt to survive from hatchling to adult, managing physical needs, while avoiding predators and environmental hazards in a dynamic landscape reflecting cutting-edge knowledge of the Hell Creek ecosystem 66 million years ago.” Can video games be educational? If they portray ancient life accurately, could they even be considered palaeoart? We put such questions and more to Saurian project lead, Nick Turinetti. Please visit the Saurian website for more details about the game and contribute to the Saurian project via their Kickstarter campaign.

Around 250 million years ago, the largest biotic crisis the world has ever known occurred. The Permo-Triassic Mass Extinction (PTME) was an event that saw the loss of up to 95% of all species. The extinction forever changed the face of life on this planet, but what caused it? How long did the PTME last? Who were the big winners and losers? And how long did it take for life to recover? Prof. Mike Benton, University of Bristol, joins us to discuss these questions in more.

Science is a process and so the door to the revision and refinement of hypotheses must always be left open. From the research discussed in our last episode, the newspapers would have you believe that the mystery of the Tully Monster had been solved once and for all. Yet only a couple of weeks later, another new study has weighed in on the identity of this enigmatic fossil. This episode is released to coincide with the publication of a new paper in Nature and lead author Thomas Clements, University of Leicester, joins us to discuss his new insights from looking into the eyes of the Tully Monster

Tullimonstrum gregarium, better known as the ‘Tully Monster’ is a problematic fossil from the Late Carboniferous Mazon Creek lagerstätte, Illinois, USA. The identity of this fossil has been the subject of much debate, due to its peculiar form. Several competing hypotheses have placed it within the arthropods, fish, worms or even molluscs.   Joining us in this interview is Dr Victoria McCoy whose work at Yale University (recently published in Nature) was able to demonstrate that the Tully Monster belonged to a different group entirely.

Dr. Larry Witmer’s lab at Ohio University studies the anatomy of modern animals to make interpretations regarding the functional morphology of extinct vertebrates. WitmerLab incorporates anatomical studies with cutting-edge technology, allowing for the reconstructions of soft-tissue structures no longer present in fossils (including respiratory apparatuses, brains, and inner ears). These reconstructions allow Dr. Witmer and his students to study the original physiology, biomechanics, and evolutionary adaptations of creatures long extinct.

Diet is perhaps the most important aspect of ecology. As such, understanding the diet of extinct animals is crucial if we wish to reconstruct the ecosystems of the past. However, determining what was on the menu for extinct animals, known only from fragmentary fossils, is far from straight forward. We spoke to Dr David Button, from the University of Birmingham, to learn about the techniques palaeontologists use to deduce diet from fossils.

Beneath the city of Chemnitz, Germany, exists a entire fossilised forest. This whole ecosystem was preserved in life-position during a series of volcanic events. The forest is from the Permian period and thus represents a fantastic snapshot of life during a period where terrestrial fossils are notoriously rare. Joining us to discuss the flora and fauna of the Permian of Germany is Dr Ronny Rößler, director of the Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz.

One of the most difficult aspects of palaeontology is understanding how extinct animals moved around. It’s one thing to find a fossil and reconstruct it’s morphology, but it’s completely another to put that morphology into action and understand the locomotion or behaviour. One reason for this is because of the lack of soft tissue and muscles. The field of biomechanics can help with this by looking at the actual physics of these structures to help understand things like the forces exerted on the bones or tendons of an animal. Professor John Hutchinson of the Royal Veterinary College of the University of London is an expert in biomechanics of both living and extinct vertebrates. He has worked on many aspects of the tetrapod tree including early tetrapods up to birds. This episode focuses on how we can use biomechanics to understand locomotion in extinct animals, including dinosaurs, early tetrapods, and how modern animals relate to this question.

The Wealden Supergroup of southern England is known for it's Cretaceous fossils, particularly of dinosaurs, but also crocodilians, pterosaurs, lizards, invertebrates, and plants. The group represents the Early Cretaceous, and is well known for showing us the environment of this time period, which is not well-represented in many other places in the world. It has been essential in helping to understand this time. Large body fossils are known, but also small microvertebrate sites, and even footprints and foot casts.   Dr Darren Naish, a research associate at the University of Southampton and known for his blog Tetrapod Zoology has worked significantly with fossils from the Wealden Group, including dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine reptiles. In this episode, we talk about the importance of the Wealden Group, focusing on the large diversity of dinosaurs found here.

Laura interviews Dave about Palaeocast's new project: The Virtual Natural History Museum. The Virtual Natural History Museum (V-NHM) is a project designed to make digital palaeontological resources accessible like never before. This website will integrate fossil multimedia from museums worldwide and bring them together in the one place, creating a kind of ‘master museum’. All of this data will be exhibited inside of a ‘computer game-style’ museum, allowing you to virtually explore the rich biological history of our planet, as told by the world’s best fossils.

Preparators are specialist staff working in museums and universities worldwide. They perform a very wide variety of tasks from fieldwork excavations, to specimen conservation. Any fossil has to be prepared for use, whether its to expose specific parts so that they can be studied, or to preserve and reconstruct a specimen so that it can be displayed in a museum gallery. Vertebrate preparation is an increasingly professionalised field that plays a huge part in the process of modern palaeontology.

This year the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America was held in Baltimore, Maryland. This is one of the largest conferences that palaeontologists attend, with over 6000 attendees from all fields of Earth Sciences. Caitlin and Laura went along and talked to many of the palaeontology researchers who had come to present their work on posters and in talks.