Terrible Lizards

Skiphosoura – the pterosaur of the gaps So last week Dave had a new paper out and this time it’s a new pterosaur, named Skiphosoura bavarica (the sword tail of Bavaria) and it is both really interesting and really important for pterosaur research. It tells us a lot about the key transition of pterosaurs from the early forms through to the derived pterodactyloids, which has been a major subject of research for the last 15 years. Skiphosaura also shows us that the Scottish Dearc (that we covered a couple of years back) is much more important than previously thought and helps create a fantastic series of species where we can now track a whole series of evolutionary steps for pterosaurs. This transition really is now a great example of being able to see an evolutionary change over time in the fossil record. So strap in for some overly-detailed anatomical descriptions of bits of obscure pterosaurs! Links: Support us on patreon and get extra content https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards Here’s a link to the full paper – it’s open access so anyone can read it: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)01377-0   And here’s Dave’s blog post about the specimen and it’s significance: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2024/11/18/skiphosoura-solving-the-transition-to-pterodactyloids/   Link to the website of the Lauer Foundation: https://www.lauerfoundationpse.org/   The bonus episode we did on Dearc: https://terriblelizards.libsyn.com/tls06-bonus-jurassic-pterosaur-dearc-sgiathanach

Dave has a new book out next week and it’s the culmination of several years work. Longtime listeners will know the major themes already from the episode title – a lot of stuff in the literature on dinosaur behaviour is badly framed, overstated, contradictory or contains major over extrapolations. Happily, you can listen to all of this again as Dave goes into all of this and more, what’s in the book, who it’s aimed at and what he’s trying to achieve with it. It's not out till next week, so this is a bit a of a sneak preview, even if various copies have snuck out the door and some (un?)lucky people have their hands on it already. Next month will be far less sycophantic and self publicising, honest. Support us on patreon and unlock extra content https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards Special offer! Get 30% off Uncovering Dinosaur Behavior by Dave Hone. Use code UDB30 when you buy direct from Princeton University Press. (Postage costs will be added at point of purchase. Offer available until 31 December 2024.)  https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691215914/uncovering-dinosaur-behavior  

Last month we mentioned that legendary palaeontologist Mike Benton had announced his retirement, but with a few quick emails, Dave was able to grab him for this month’s episode. So, join Dave and Iszi as we have celebration of Mike’s career and take him through his early interest in palaeontology, how he got his PhD, the death of Al Romer, rhynchosaurs, the rise of dinosaurs, mass extinctions, fieldwork in Russia, endless books, and his work on the colours of dinosaurs. It’s a whirlwind dash through an entire so strap in for the deluge of facts and fables and enjoy. And congratulations to Mike!   Links: patreon.com/terriblelizards Mike’s webpage at Bristol which covers his career and achievements: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/people/person/Mike-Benton-e41eaef1-135d-40db-9b7f-e81f7d290f72/ A link to the Amazon page of (most of) Mike’s books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Michael-Benton/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3AMichael+Benton

We’ve made plenty of jokes over the years about the general lack of sauropod skulls and the frustrations of trying to work out what these animals were doing when it came to things like feeding when the most important bit is missing. Happily, this week we are joined by David Button who has done a ton of work in this area and is happy to chat to Dave and Iszi about how their heads and teeth were built and what this can (and can’t) tell us about their diets and habits. While we have him trapped, we also quiz him on his recent work on the behaviour of the thescelosaurs, an odd branch of dinosaurs we’ve taken till series 10 to even mention!   Links: Extra content on patreon: www.patreon.com/terriblelizards And old post of Dave’s on the sauropod skeletons in Berlin, that really show off the issue of different feeding heights in these animals: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/berlin-sauropods/ David’s webpage at the University of Bristol: https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/david-j-button

The spinosaurs get all the love (OK, mostly hate) and attention when it comes to the megalosauroids, but they are but one weird branch of this group of theropods. Sadly they have a similar problem to the spinosaurs in that there are annoyingly few fossils of them, and there’s very few people working on these animals. Happily, today Iszi and Dave are joined by one of them, Cass Morrison who is doing his PhD on these unusual animals and is here to give us the lowdown on their evolution, diversity, biogeography and ecology and generally fill us in on these much under-appreciated animals.   Links: For extra content go to our Patreon https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards   Apiece with Cass about his work on dinosaur brains: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/behind-the-science-cassius-morrison.html   Find Cass on Twitter https://x.com/casscretaceous and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cretaceous.cass/?hl=en-gb

We have touched on the extinction that killed the dinosaurs plenty of times before over the various seasons of TL, but we have never really tackled it fully before. Finally, we are joined by a real expert on this subject, Melanie During who is in the process of finishing her PhD on this very subject. So prepare for not actually really any dinosaurs, but quite a lot of geology and geochemistry to learn how the impact was so utterly devastating and how we know. It turns out that they never stood a chance and that the damage was even worse than even Dave had realised.   Links: support us on patreon and access extra content:  www.patreon.com/terriblelizards   A link to Melanie’s YouTube series which is on long term hiatus but full of cool videos to watch (even if it notably fails to include a certain silver-haired pterosaur and tyrannosaur researcher): https://www.youtube.com/c/GenuineRockstars/videos   Here’s a link to Melanie’s press stuff for her papers but it includes some videos and graphs of that we talk about https://uppsala.app.box.com/s/ikmlwtb0vui7zn5k74jfokbhysla8ck1

Live edited recording at The Oxford Fire Station on 25/05/2024. Live Anniversary Q&A for the Oxford Podcast Festival It’s the 4th (!) anniversary of the launch of Terrible Lizards and this came at a perfect time as Iszi and Dave got invited to do the recent podcast festival in Oxford. So, while we have our usual end of series Q&QA episode in a few months, here we have an early one with questions from out live audience. We thought that was more appropriate then for us to just rabbit on (or dinosaur on) in front of people and it made for a pretty compelling exchange, the time simply flew by. An obviously thanks to the organisers for hosting us and especially to all the people who actually trekked there (from Edinburgh! From Germany!) and then spent actual time to just listen to us. It’s still all rather confusing and unsettling, but they say it takes all sorts to make a world. Anyway, here it all and happy birthday to us, and thanks for listening.   Links: Podcast festival link: https://www.saintaudiopodcastfestival.com/ Support us on Patreon for extra content: https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

We all know about how common dinosaurs can be in places like Europe, Argentina, the US, China and Mongolia, but they have turned up in dozens and dozens of countries and on every continent, including Antarctica. Unsurprisingly, it’s a very tough place to work, it costs a ton of money, and there are not that many dinosaurs to be found, but they are there. Today we are joined by Matt Lamanna of the Carnegie Museum who has spent multiple field seasons on the chilly continent and he tells us about lush forests, tiny dinosaurs, ancient birds and modern penguins. So join us to learn about what is perhaps the last great unexplored area of dinosaurs, the bottom of the world.   Links: SEE TERRIBLE LIZARDS LIVE! https://oldfirestation.org.uk/whats-on/terrible-lizards-podcast/   Matt’s website on the project: https://antarcticdinos.org/   Matt’s profile at the Carnegie: https://carnegiemnh.org/research/matthew-lamanna/   A short post of Dave’s on the Carnegie sauropods, click through the next few posts if you want to see all of their dinosaurs: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/cargenie-dinosaurs/

Dinosaur footprints with Peter Falkingham Footprints and trackways are an amazing source of data on how dinosaurs moved and what they did. But interpreting these can be a real nightmare since it’s hard to work out the interactions between a moving foot and the actual surface, or work out which species might have made which tracks. At the forefront of solving some of these issues and working out what we can and can’t meaningfully day about dinosaur tracks is Professor Peter Falkingham at Liverpool John Moores University. So today he joins us to talk about chasing birds across mud, literal books made of fossil dinosaur footprints and using X-rays to work out how dinosaurs moved. There’s so much in here and you’ll never walk across a beach again without looking back at your own tracks. Links: COME SEE US LIVE!: https://oldfirestation.org.uk/whats-on/terrible-lizards-podcast/ Pete’s website: peterfalkingham.com   An article based on Pete’s work with a load of videos of his stuff https://www.aws.amherst.edu/museums/naturalhistory/dinosaur-tracks   Pete’s YouTube channel with loads of videos of his projects https://www.youtube.com/@PeterFalkingham   Please do support us by giving us a review and you can unlock extra content on patreon https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

We don’t often delve into the Triassic since Dave is not well versed in that time and the animals that were around then, but there were some very important animals that we’ve unduly overlooked across the last 9 series. Happily, today we can redress a large part of that with this episode on Coelophysis. Known from hundreds of skeletons, it’s one of the best represented dinosaurs in the fossil record and yet it remains criminally understudied despite the available data. As one of the earliest theropods, it is perhaps archetypal of the lineages came later, but as so often happens, a bunch of questionable taxonomic decisions and referrals over the decades has left the animal in a bit of a mess. Here to help clear that up is Skye McDavid, scientific illustrator and independent researcher who has put far more time into sorting out the problems of Coelophysis than most would deem wise and joins us to share her wealth of knowledge.   Links: Skye’s hub on her website with links to her art, socials etc. https://www.skyemcdavid.com/links Please support us on patreon and unlock extra content! https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

The year 2024 is the 200th anniversary of the naming of the first dinosaur, Megalosaurus. While ‘Dinosauria’ wouldn’t be coined till 1842 (so we have a fair wait before that anniversary kicks in, and doubtless will be marked with another major celebration) it is a great time to take stock of where we are in dinosaur palaeontology. So obviously a good idea is this, that the Natural History Museum in London organised a major international meeting for this, and Dave went along. So in this episode of our (yes, really) 12th series, Dave reports back to Iszi on what was going down at the conference and looks back on 200 years of dinosaur-ing and forwards to what’s coming soon of the back of the meeting. Thank you for your support:  www.patreon.com/terriblelizards Link to our live show on 25/05/2024 at Oxford's Old Fire Station https://oldfirestation.org.uk/whats-on/terrible-lizards-podcast/ Links: A shot of the original Megalosaurus jaw and some skull bits: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/more-of-megalosaurus/   And the famous Crystal Palace reconstructions of the first dinosaurs: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/crystal-palace-dinosaurs/  

Stegosaurus with Dr Susie Maidment THE TIME HAS COME. For ages Dave, for very Dave reasons refused to cover one dinosaur. Now, we find out all about it with an expert in the field.  Last year's mystery xmas present to all of you who support us now for everyone. Patrons will get an video bonus episode. You can follow Susie Maidment https://twitter.com/Tweetisaurus.

Longtime listeners will be familiar with the fact that Dave has spent a lot of time looking at and working on various bites marks on dinosaur bones left by the carnivorous theropods. These can tell us an enormous amount about who was doing what to whom and what it can mean for the ecology and behaviour of both the herbivores that were bitten and the carnivores that bit them. However, to date work on this for dinosaurs has almost exclusively focused on the tyrannosaurs with their tendency to bite on bones. But they weren’t the only ones doing this. As Dave explains to Iszi in this episode, he’s got a big new paper out with a plethora of authors assessing what was going on in the famous Morrison Formation that was teeming with giant sauropods but had plenty of theropods around too. What were they up to and can we learn more about their biology from a few bites?   Links:   Matt Wedel’s blog post about the project: https://svpow.com/2023/11/14/new-paper-theropod-bite-marks-on-morrison-sauropod-bones/   Dave’s post about it: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2023/11/14/theropods-bit-sauropods-too/   And the paper itself: https://peerj.com/articles/16327/

Dinosaur documentaries are booming again so it’s time to blow the lid on some insider secrets of how these get made. (Alternative description: Dave complains for an hour about being messed around by TV companies and ignored by the very producers and directors who hired him for his advice on the models and scrip they are working on). Dave and Iszi share their stories from behind and in front of the camera and the steps that go into getting a dinosaur doc made and what goes on behind the scenes.   Links: Dave has a fair old history with the more traditional media and you can see the fury coming out here too: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/linheraptor-vs-the-international-media/   Some great stuff can come from good documentaries though, check out this interview with the man behind the Walking with Dinosaurs models (and Jabba the Hutt!). https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/interview-with-jez-gibson-harris/

Odd ideas in palaeontology Palaeontology as a scientific field is beyond popular in the media and with the public but that also means it draws a lot of attention from those with, let’s call them, questionable ideas. And no group gets more of this stuff than the dinosaurs and the animals of the Mesozoic. This time out, Iszi and Dave discuss the world of paleo cranks, people with outlandish and non-scientific ideas who present them as fully formed research. Rarely does any of this make it into the mainstream, but on occasion it leaks in and this can only cause confusion. So sit back and enjoy, or grind your teeth in quiet and cold fury, as we go over some of the issues that come with unscientific ideas trying to make their way into the mainstream. Links: It’s not just palaeontology that gets these people, here’s a neat blog on a physics crank, but the central themes are identical: https://www.skepticblog.org/2012/01/09/cranks-and-physics/   A nice article by Mark Witton on how to spot crankery in palaeontology: http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2019/02/how-to-spot-palaeontological-crankery.html   Please do support the show on patreon.com/terriblelizards for extra content.

It is the mega questions episode! Due to Dave etch-a-sketching everything in his life, making things like access to the internet an unusual hurdle, we decided to do answer as many questions we could in an hour. We didn’t manage to run out of questions. Big thanks to Trisha, Sophia, Matt, Roy, Harris, Marcus, Noah, Jay, Aurous Azhdarchid, Rachel, Richard and David.  The mystery of allosaurus arms is still unanswered. It is sad.  Do check out Dave’s blog and books: https://www.davehone.co.uk/outreach/books/ Also check out all that Iszi does including her books: https://iszi.com/ and her very irregular TikTok is here: https://www.tiktok.com/@iszi_lawrence If you don’t already please do consider supporting the show on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards Or get yourself merch here: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/54175858  

Petrodactyle and Pterosaur Growth Dave has had a productive year for pterosaur papers and now two are out in quick succession(!) so get ready for a double-whammy podcast of him rolling his eyes when Iszi mentions flappy-flaps and he’s trying to be serious. Anyway, first up is a new large pterosaur from southern Germany with a massive bony crest on its head. The specimen is owned by the Lauer Foundation and Dave talks about them and their work with palaeontologists to bring some new fossils to science. From there we move onto a new paper on pterosaur growth. We have covered this before with the idea that at least some pterosaurs grew very evenly and were independent pretty much on hatching. But this is a wider study with more species and suggests that the bigger pterosaurs were engaging in parental care with adults looking after their offspring for some time and shows there was more variation than previously thought.    Links: Here’s a link to the Lauer Foundation where you can check out their work: https://www.lauerfoundationpse.org and here’s their Facebook page with loads of photos of Petrodactyle: https://www.facebook.com/lauerfoundation  A post of Dave’s from a couple of years back on his last big foray into pterosaur growth: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2020/07/08/how-to-grow-your-dragon-pterosaur-onotgeny/  A link to I Know Dino which we mentioned at the top of the episode: https://iknowdino.com/ Please support us on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards Artwork Credit: Lauer Foundation

This week a ‘what I did on my holidays’ from Dave, though it wasn’t a holiday and he dug a hole in Utah and looked at a ton of museums and quarries. The Morrison Formation is a legendary slice of dinosaur history with a huge number of famous sites, important fossils, and features animals like Diplodocus, Allosaurus and Stegosaurus. After far too many years, Dave finally made it out to some of the best known and most important sites and in this episode reports back to Iszi on what he saw and learned and talks about digging a large hole with no dinosaurs in it while looking for a brachiosaur. It’s all very palaeontological, but that seems to suit our audience so here we are.     Dave’s new books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=dave+Hone+Smith+Wayland+dinosaur+book&crid=9EJAFZAAPNJV&sprefix=dave+hone+smith+wayland+dinosaur+book%2Caps%2C86&ref=nb_sb_noss   Dave’s not got his act together yet for photos of the trip but here’s some classic Morrison sauropods from the Morrison: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/a-pair-of-giants/ Please do support us on Patreon and unlock extra content: https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Pterosaurs flew! No big shock there, but obviously flight places major constraints and selective pressures on the skeleton. This should mean all pterosaurs have standard, not-that-varied flight anatomy (in the same way most walking animals have similar leg anatomy).  It turns out an absolutely critical part of the pterosaur is both basically all but unstudied and wildly variable, yes, it’s the sternum. Dr Dave Hone (hello!) has just published a huge paper cataloguing and describing basically every sternum for every pterosaur out there and Iszi (hello!) gets to the bottom of why this is important for science and bad for Dave's mental health.  Here is a link to Dave's blog: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2023/04/20/everything-you-didnt-think-to-ask-about-the-pterosaur-sternum-and-were-afraid-to-ask/?fbclid=IwAR3roJ1M-PgFO-53NZlPEXv--jkTo2xLTbh1okSC03QkeFY4nFnjZ_TELVw As always do consider supporting us on Patreon and unlock extra content: https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Sauropods in general don’t get the love they should on Terrible Lizards because, well, Dave doesn’t know that much about them (and everyone knows theropods are best anyways). However, there’s more than a couple that are both well-known enough in general and Dave know a bit about them that we can talk for a decent amount of time. Step forward the long-neckiest of the long-necked sauropods, Mamenchisaurus. This odd (even by sauropod standards) animal is found in a number of different sites from the Middle Jurassic of China but has not had all the research attention that it should for a such an interesting animal that’s known from a good amount of material and a time where dinosaur remains are generally sparse. Happily, a major new study is out on these animals which adds some nice new information and potentially resolves some longstanding issues with this awesome genus so buckle up for some important tales of neck elongation in the Mesozoic.    Links: A very short blogpost by Dave with a photo of the mounted Bellusaurs skeleton:  https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/bellusaurus/   And a post on the insanely long Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum cervical rib: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2008/06/27/biggest-bones/