Terrible Lizards

We have talked about all manner of fundamentals of research on fossils over the years here on Terrible Lizards, including finding and excavating fossils, writing and publishing papers, reconstructing animals from fragments and more. But we’ve somehow really glossed over the role of museums that store and protect fossils and make them available for research, as well as carrying out their own work too. In order to correct this oversight, today we welcome ReBecca Hunt-Foster who is the curator on the legendary Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. Here she takes us through her background and research and the challenges of looking after one of the most famous and important dinosaur sites in the world.   Links:   https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards ReBecca on Bluesky: @dinochick.bsky.social Here’s the link to the US National Parks website about Dinosaur National Monument: https://www.nps.gov/dino/index.htm An old blogpost of Dave’s about the bitten baby Diplodocus femur: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2018/04/22/non-tyrannosaurs-biting-like-tyrannosaurs/

This time out we are joined by palaeontologist Andre Rowe to talk about his research into the skulls of giant carnivorous dinosaurs and what this means for their biology. This turns into a debate with Dave about how evidence can be interpreted in different ways and trying to piece together the often limited data we have to work out what these animals might have been doing. Though with her media-trained eye, Iszi wants to badge this as a heated fight over just how awesome Tyrannosaurus was (see previous episode for details). Andre takes us through the process of scanning skulls, restoring the bits and then testing ideas about bite force and skull strength and how the different giant theropod differed in their habits. Links: Support us on patreon and get extra content: www.patreon.com/terriblelizards Here’s an article Andre wrote on his T. rex bite research: https://theconversation.com/tyrannosaurus-rex-didnt-get-its-ferocious-bite-until-it-was-an-adult-new-research-156668 Here is Andre’s Instagram handle: @tyrannosaurrowe

This month’s episode is a sort of follow-up to that from the start of the year, looking at some of the more problematic areas of dinosaurs and palaeontology when it comes to online discussions. There is an online fandom of dinosaurs that treats them like monsters or superheroes, and can fixate on what is and isn’t the biggest / strongest / fastest dinosaur and who could beat up who. Joining us to discuss this is Dr Mike O’Sullivan, a palaeontologist and self-professed member of several fandoms. We talk about how this community works and what it means for scientists talking about research.   Links: Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/terriblelizards   Mike is part of Palaeogames, a company of professional palaeontologists making accurate books and games: https://palaeogames.com/   And here’s their latest Kickstarter, a Dungeons & Dragons companion book: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/palaeogames/professor-primulas-portfolio-of-palaeontology

Series 11, eh? We don’t think we, or anyone else reading this, expected that. Nor did we expect issues with Dave’s microphone (apologies)… Still, here we are and with more dinosaur goodness coming. We say ‘coming’ because this episode is far less about dinosaurs and pterosaurs than usual, but more about the mechanisms of science. In this case it’s really about Dave’s experiences as a science communicator and how things like this are increasingly important for science, but in the UK at least, this can be monitored and measured and so having ways to do that becomes important. And this is the central point of today’s show, a call to arms for all those who are involved in sci comms and delight in sharing new knowledge to understand why it’s important to credit your sources when new discoveries are made.   Links: For extra content: patreon.com/terriblelizards If you want to know a bit more about REF in the UK, here’s the main pages for it: https://2029.ref.ac.uk/about/what-is-the-ref/ And if we’re talking communication, it seems a good time to say that Iszi and Dave are both now on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/davehone.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/iszi.com  

Thanks to Kyle, Tom, Ashley, Aurous, Wayne, Paleo Pete, Tyler, Will, Israel, Charles, James and Edward Support us on patreon.com/terriblelizards and be rewarded with extra content! We are planning on going live on isztube at 16:00 GMT on Friday 26th December. (Time may change)

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