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

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/ 

This is an area we have definitely covered before but it's one of perennial interest and keeps coming round with new studies, how can we tell what ancient animals were doing with weird features. More specifically, how do claims that this feather, or sail, or frill, or claw were used as a display feature stack up? Can we really work out what dinosaurs are doing with features like this and how can we test such ideas with such limited data when they've been gone for 65 million years? Well happily Dave is going to talk through some more of it again, with a side dabble into another bit of dinosaur behaviour and looking at predation vs scavenging.

As always, please support us on patreon and get extra content https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Links:

A blogpost by Dave on working out dinosaur displays: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2023/03/07/display-features-in-the-fossil-record/

And a post on bite marks and scavenging in dinosaurs: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/combat-and-cannibalism-in-tyrannosaurs/ 

Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals have been a hit in the media for about as long as palaeontologists have been digging them up. But even in the modern age of digital communication, there is almost always an intermediate (and often several) between a palaeontologist and their audience when it comes to communicating about these animals. Whether it's journalists, reporters, documentaries and print, radio or TV, what you say, suggest, demand, advise or write as a palaeontologist often goes through editors, subeditors, producers, directors, animators and whole panels of discussion and you have very little control over it. That means that even the best communicators can have their message badly distorted by those who don't, or should, know better and has profound effects on the public understanding of science and where scientists fit into it.

So listen to Dave describe (OK, rant) about all the ways this goes wrong and what it means for the audience and palaeontologists alike. Iszi does get a word or two in as well. 

Links:

A blog post Dave forlornly wrote as a guide for journalists writing about science but serves as a useful guide for most people for spotting bad science journalism: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/traps-for-journalists-to-avoid/ 

A blogpost by palaeontologist Mark Witton about what can happen when a TV show tries to bring dinosaurs (on this case, pterosaurs) to life even when experts are involved: http://pterosaur-net.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-despair-pterosaurs-and-david.html 

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 are into series 9 now and still going, though starting with this episode, in a bid to be more consistent and less panicked about completing series and the gaps between, we're moving to being a monthly podcast. So no end in sight yet for all you dinosaur (and sometimes pterosaur) lovers. 

Anyway, we're kicking off by talking about arguably the most common way that people encounter dinosaurs and that's museum displays and exhibits. Dave and Iszi talk through how these things get set up, the constraints and compromises necessary and how to try and cater for all. Unsurprisingly, it's rather complex to balance space, time, money, science, accessibility and protect the fossils on display. Hopefully, it gives some insight into how these things come to be and how they are supposed to work at least.

We also cover whether T Rex and other theropods had primate like numbers of telencephalic neurons and what this means. Were they really like baboons?

Links:

A blog post about the little exhibition on pterosaurs Dave put together way, way back in 2007: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/the-great-pterosaur-exhibition-of-2007/

A website covering the Titus exhibition that Dave helped to create: https://fourfamilyadventures.co.uk/titus-t-rex-is-king-wollaton-hall-nottingham/

The paper we discuss: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/cne.25453

The end of the series is our favourite - we answer your questions! 

A massive thank you to our patrons who contributed the questions. Go to patreon.com/terriblelizardds for a bonus episode out next week.

Do keep in touch #terriblelizards @iszi_lawrence @dave_hone

Buy Dave's Book - How fast did T.Rex Run/The future of Dinosaurs.

Look out for iszi's childrens books: Blackbeard's Treasure is out in January with Bloomsbury.

RAWR!

Dinosaur jaws and feeding with Ali Nabavizadeh

We started with theropod feeding but what about the herbivores? This week we're joined by Ali Nabavizadeh who specialises in the jaws and teeth of the ornithischian dinosaurs and how these work and how this plays into their feeding ecology. This gives Dave ample opportunity to ask vexing questions about their jaws and elicit the same response he gives whenever asked about T. rex being a scavenger, but it does mean that Ali talks about how the hadrosaur dental battery works, how similar they are to ceratopsians and whether or not these animals have cheeks. 

Links:

Ali on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vert_Anatomist

Ali's webpages: https://www.vet.upenn.edu/people/faculty-clinician-search/aliNabavizadeh

Support Terrible Lizards on Patreon

Although we looked at some biomechanical work earlier this series, this time we get into the real depths of how dinosaurs moved. John Hutchinson joins us with tales of galloping crocodiles and white dots on elephants in an effort to understand how these animals move as part of his work on dinosaur locomotion. We talk about how Jurassic Park cheated to make the T. rex look faster and just how you can build a model of such huge animals from their bones and how reliable such an exercise really is. We also return to the subject of disability in science and look at how John's work has been affected by epilepsy over the last few years. 

Links:

John on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnRHutchinson

John's Blog: https://whatsinjohnsfreezer.com

Our Twitters 

@iszi_lawrence and @dave_hone

Please support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Some dinosaurs haven't had enough love on here (though some get what they deserve, I mean, who even likes Stegosaurus?) and chief among them are the sauropodomorphs. However, this week we make a belated and desperate attempt to correct that by talking to Paul Upchurch for an hour. One of the world's leading experts on these herbivorous giants, he takes us through a whole bunch of his research history from obscure British sauropods to the long necked mamenchisaurs and other oddities. We also talk about disability in science as Paul has a severe visual impairment and he talks about how this has affected him during his career. 

Links:

Paul's research pages: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/earth-sciences/people/academic/prof-paul-upchurch

Support the show on patreon! https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Crystal Palace Dinosaurs with Mark Witton

We have covered palaeoart here from time to time and the process of producing images of dinosaurs and other prehistoric life (as both technical illustrations and more creative life reconstructions) but one of the most important of these gets far too little attention. In the 1800s life size replicas of dozens of ancient animals were put up in a park in south London and are still there today. Palaeontologist and palaeoartist Mark Witton joins us to talk about this history, their importance, why they are falling apart and the efforts to conserve them. Happily he's put out a book on this very subject, the research for which has revealed surprising and important new details about these first models of dinosaurs. 

Links:

Mark on Twitter

 https://twitter.com/MarkWitton

Mark's webpages:

https://www.markwitton.co.uk

Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs website

https://linktr.ee/cpdinosaurs

British iguanodontids with Joe Bonsor

We have touched on Iguanodon before as one of the earliest named dinosaurs and an animal with some interesting relatives and famously spiky thumbs but they never really got the attention that they should have done (from us at least). Enter Joe Bonsor who is finishing off his PhD on these very animals and trying to sort out the utter mess that is the taxonomy of the iguanodontians in the UK. We dive into this with some surprising conclusions and interesting news about what Joe has found (no spoilers, you'll have to listen) and we go through some of the earliest dinosaur history and give some well-deserved coverage of the great Gideon Mantell.

Links:

Joe on Twitter

https://twitter.com/palaeojoe

Joe's blogpost on his PhD

https://palaeojoe.wordpress.com/2020/07/30/yes-but-what-do-you-actually-do/

To support the show please write a review, share this with your friends and join us on Patreon. 

https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Following up on the previous series where pterosaurs dominated, we had to sneak in a bit more of them here. Dave has always had an aversion to the toothy ornithocheirids as while so many of them turn up in 3D (unlike pretty much all other pterosaurs) they also have a horrific taxonomic history and they are a nightmare to deal with. Happily, Taissa Rodrigues is here to talk all about them and she has done more than anyone else to sort out these species and their relationships in recent years as well as working on their biology and that of other pterosaurs in her native Brazil. We also get onto the tricky subject of fossil laws, poaching, exports and differing rules and histories around the world and the damage it can do to research.

Links:

Taissa on Twitter

https://twitter.com/paleotaissa

A report on one of her recent papers on pterosaur pneumaticity

https://paleontologia.ufes.br/en/conteudo/vertebral-air-cavities-large-pterosaurs-disclose-key-adaptations-flight 

To support the show please write a review, share this with your friends and join us on Patreon. 

https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Theropod jaw biomechanics with Manabu Sakamoto

We are still going! We are back and like last series, we're taking a bit of a different tack to the previous ones and here we are having experts on every episode in a desperate attempt to make up for Dave's quite profound lack of knowledge in numerous areas of dinosaur biology. With that in mind, we start off with Manabu Sakamoto who works primarily on the biomechanics of theropods jaws – what they could and couldn't bite and how hard and what this means. This is obviously of huge importance for figuring out their general biology, behaviour and diet and so it's great to get some real insight into this area of their lives.

Links:

Manabu on Twitter

https://twitter.com/drmambobob

Manabu's online lecture on dinosaur evolution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9KFj5msp28

To support the show please write a review, share this with your friends and join us on Patreon. 

https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

The new series will start on the 12th of October! If you would like to support us and get our bonus episodes sooner - please consider becoming a patron on patreon.com/terriblelizards.

Pterosaurs living during the Jurassic period were thought to have been relatively small, but a stunning new skeleton shows otherwise. Natalia Jagielska has helped describe the new find in Scotland which has changed our understanding of Flappy Flaps. 

Natalia Jagielska is a PhD in Palaeontology at University of Edinburgh Studying Jurassic Pterosaurs and a Illustrator Dino Consultant for @paleopines

(Spoilers) The spectacularly preserved three-dimensional skeleton from the Middle Jurassic of Scotland, is a new genus and species: Dearc sgiathanach with a wingspan >2.5 m, and bone histology shows it was a juvenile-subadult still actively growing when it died, making it the largest known Jurassic pterosaur represented by a well-preserved skeleton. 

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

If you could give the paleontology field NASA's budget what would you do with it? Ever used laser-stimulated fluorescence? How do pterosaurs sleep? Was was Irritator challengeri? When did birds wiggle their hips? How can you tell if species shared an environment? Is there any evidence for intra-specific fighting amongst Pterosaurs?

PLUS MORE!

We've gotten a plethora of questions this series - Dr David Hone tries to get through them all - with a little help from Iszi Lawrence.

Thank you to our Patrons! Join them patreon.com/terriblelizards

Dave's Book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09PTDQJG1/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Iszi's other podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0c142b0

Iszi's new book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blackbeards-Treasure-Flashbacks-Iszi-Lawrence/dp/1801990964/ref=zg_bsnr_15512140031_3/260-4119745-8285309?pd_rd_i=1801990964&psc=1

How science works

In another in the increasingly long line of topics we probably should have covered quite a few series ago, this week we are addressing some of the fundamentals of what science actually IS. How does it all work really, and what is the difference between a hypothesis and a theory, and how confident can we be about dinosaur research when so much is unknown and difficult to put to the test? All this and some other bits (that I can't really remember because we recorded this 2 months ago and I've not listened to the edit yet) are covered and hopefully it's a case of 'better late than never' in informing our listeners of the basis of scientific studies.

Thank you for listening and do consider supporting us on patreon:

patreon.com/terriblelizards

Links:

A short but simple definition of science by the UK Science Council: https://sciencecouncil.org/about-science/our-definition-of-science/

This is perhaps the question that gets asked the most and so it's time to address it properly (well, we are 7 seasons in, we were going to get to it sooner or later). So this week we are talking about routes into palaeontology and all that involves, from 'classic' academic roles as a researcher at a university or museum, though to science writers, fossil preparators, illustrators and photographers and all manner of other palaeontologically related jobs and careers. As well as all that, we'll talk about those people who are actively engaged in research and publications without holding jobs or having qualifications in the field as they exist too. So hopefully this will answer some burning questions for many and enlighten others as to how everyone comes together (to argue with each other) in this field.

Links:

Dave's original essay on this subject: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2018/07/04/how-do-i-become-a-palaeontologist/

And a follow up with suggested books to read to become a palaeontologist: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2020/04/14/books-to-read-to-become-a-palaeontologist/

Perhaps the best known, and most often misrepresented, pterosaur is Pteranodon. It has become the archetypal pterosaur and is always in the background of every Mesozoic scene (especially with T. rex) to let you know that the pterosaurs are out there. But aside from being quite big and having a funky headcrest (like all the best pterosaurs do) it's an animal that is constantly overlooked even though we have more than a thousand specimens of it to work from. That's an odd combination so it's time that Pteranodon got some love and we took a look at one of the best known and most studied pterosaurs.

Links:

Mark Witton's blog post about the taxonomic confusion and identities of Pteranodon specimens https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-pteranodon-complex-and-dismantling.html

Dave's blog post about the untimely end to one with a shark's tooth in its neck. https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/pteranodon-vs-cretoxyrhina/

From the very biggest to the smallest, anurognathids were the little fuzz balls of pterosaurs that barely reached 1m wingspan as adults. They were bat-like hawkers, catching insects on the wing with their giant gapes and tiny teeth. Although rare, like the azhdarchids we have recently had a flurry of finds and accompanying research on them which means that they have gone from one of the least to one of the best understood pterosaurs in short order. Better yet, they include several specimens with incredible preservation of the wings and pycnofibers (?feathers?) so they tell us a lot about pterosaurs generally, even while being weird even by pterosaur standards. 

Do please support us on patreon

Links:

A blog post of Dave's about his recent review that summarised everything we (he) knew about anuroganthids. https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2020/10/15/revising-the-frog-mouthed-pterosaurs-the-anurognathids/

Another Dave post about the recently named Cascocauda and anurognathid growth https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2022/03/03/cascocauda-a-new-anurognathid-pterosaur/

If most people know one thing about pterosaurs (well one correct thing rather than them being flying dinosaurs or bird ancestors) it's that they got really big. At the top end they hit over 10 m in wingspan and probably over 250 kg, massively bigger than the largest flying birds (living or extinct). And all the real giants belonged to one group – the azhdarchids. These long-necked monsters were a real mystery for decades but a flurry of discoveries and research in recent years means we now have an excellent understanding of their ecology and weird proportions.

Links:

Dave's blog post about the Canadian azhdarchid he (fairly) recently named https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2019/09/10/welcome-cryodrakon-a-gaint-canadian-azhdarchid-pterosaur/

Darren Naish's blog about the recent big work finally describing Quetzalcoatlus https://tetzoo.com/blog/2021/12/8/the-quetz-monograph-lives

It's hopefully not a surprise at this point that pterosaurs were fully powered and capable fliers and that they were not passive gliders or could only get airbourne through jumping off of cliffs. While we do talk about flight here, it's not like that is all pterosaurs could do so we cover their abilities on the ground (and in trees) and take-off, and then whether or not they could dive, swim and how they floated in the water. It's a whole cornucopia of pterosaur locomotion through three states of matter (no known plasma locomotion yet) so listen in and enjoy.

Please support the podcast on patreon 

Links:

A section on Pterosaur.net about the abilities of pterosaurs on the ground. http://pterosaur.net/terrestrial_locomotion.php

Another section of Pterosaur.net, but this time on flight http://pterosaur.net/flight.php

An old article by Dave about his work on pterosaurs floating in water https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2013/dec/11/life-on-the-ocean-wave-wasnt-easy-for-pterosaurs

We've run out of dinosaurs (stega what now?) and so thanks to popular demand (well, Dave's demand) we're doing (almost) an entire series on pterosaurs!

Everyone's favourite Mesozoic flying reptiles (well, Dave's favourite) are getting a series to spread their wings. We start with the namesake of the clade, Pterodactylus itself and something of the early history of pterosaur discoveries and research and the unusual interpretations that were floated for these incredibly strange (then and now) animals. 

Please do support us on patreon! patreon.com/terriblelizards

Links:

The original episode we did on pterosaurs. If you've not listened to it before (or recently) you might want to revisit that before the rest of this series. 

https://terriblelizards.libsyn.com/s03e02-ptserosaurs

Pterosaur.net is a site Dave set up with a bunch of other pterosaur researchers (many of whom often get a mention on TL). It's a bit dated but there's a lot of good stuff on here. http://pterosaur.net/index.php

An old blog post of Dave's including the 'flying possums' picture https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/early-pterosaur-reconstructions/

This is a bonus episode previously released to our patrons on Patreon. If you want to support us, and get more content please visit patreon.com/terriblelizards. 

Terrible Lizards is, at least in theory, there for dinosaur lovers of all ages and backgrounds, but podcasting is just one way to communicate with the public about dinosaurs and it's probably not the first one you would think of. Joining us this time out is Ashley Hall, a science communicator and outreach officer at the famous Museum of the Rockies and someone who specialises in talking to the public about their amazing dinosaur collection. So in the episode Dave and Iszi chat to Ashley about the challenges of talking about dinosaurs and palaeontology to different audiences and the influences of pop culture (i.e. we moan about Camp Cretaceous).

Links:

Ashley's Linktree to all her things: https://linktr.ee/Lady_Naturalist 

Facebook group on Paleontology Education: https://www.facebook.com/groups/877919522277386

twitter @LadyNaturalist

Instagram: @Lady_Naturalist

The Questions episode!

Untapped fossils, bad evolution, therapod bites, spaniel ears, courtship dances and MORE!

Big thanks to everyone who sent in their questions.

Martin, Glen, Mathew, Sam, Kim (https://kimralls.co.uk/), Gutza, Robbie, John, Marlon aaaand John.

We will be back in the summer - please do support us on Patreon, where we will be adding some extra content. Also BUY DAVE'S BOOK - The Future of Dinosaurs or in the USA: How fast does a T-rex run? Aaaand it is available as an AUDIOBOOK on audible, so no excuse ;).

And of course you should also check out Iszi's books which have extant dinosaurs in them... well, a chicken called Susan. iszi.com/books

Do please keep in touch - we love to hear from everyone - @iszi_lawrence and @dave_hone on twitter. 

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

The Future of Dinosaurs

No guest this week as Dave manages to ramble on for an entire hour on his own again (well, Ok, Iszi helps him ramble). To be fair, he's got a new book out and since its 80 000 words of dinosaur ideas we thought we should cover it and it was never easily going to fit into 40 minutes. What's this amazing [citation needed] new book on? Well it's all about what we don't know about dinosaurs and the gaps in our knowledge – what we might work out soon (or at least one day in the future) and what things it might be impossible to work out and ever have any good ideas beyond some educated guesswork. This isn't just a plug for the book (honest) but really a discussion of some of the ideas and implications (but of course you can buy it too. Go on. Please?). Hopefully it's some nice ideas to think about and it is certainly unusual to talk about the info we don't have rather than what we do.

Links:

Well the obvious one here let's be honest is the link to buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Future-Dinosaurs-What-Dont-Never/dp/1473692245/

Alvarezsaurs

From a micro dinosaur to the very smallest, this time out we're looking at the little alvarezsaurs which include the smallest of the non-avian dinosaurs and with several species that were the tiniest yet found in the Mesozoic. Dr Steve Cross joins us to analyse a popular work of dinosaur fiction.

Dr Steve Cross is a an incredible consultant and STEM communicator. Find him, follow him, employ him. http://www.scienceshowoff.org/

Links:

A blogpost about Linhenykus: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/linhenykus-the-very-model-of-modern-mongol-errr-alverasaur/

And one on the (possible) early alvarezsaur Haplocheirus by its describer, Jonah Choiniere: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/guest-post-haplocheirus-–-the-skilful-one/

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

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/

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

We've covered one small, unadorned and under-rated herbivorous ornithischian already this series in Psittacosaurus and here's another one in the remarkable little heterodonotosaurs. Another set of animals for which we have some superb skeletons and lots of interesting features that are potentially very revealing about the evolution of dinosaurs in general (and ornithischians in particular) and yet they get very little love. As usual all the attention goes to the biggest dinosaurs, the carnivores and the showiest ones with big crests, but we here at Terrible Lizards want to stand up for the little fun dinos too, so here's a whole show on them. Plus we get joined by comedian and artist Bec Hill who has a question about sauropod feet with a twist. 

Links:

A shot blog post from Dave with some photos of the little filamented Tianyulong: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/tiayulong/

And a much longer post with one tiny photo about the implications of filaments (feathers?) in these animals (though it's quite old now): https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/blah-blah-feathered-ornithischians-yawn/

http://www.bechillcomedian.com/

@bechillcomedian

Bec's dinosaur song with Jay Foreman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ydJU-bVXaA

Iszi is in Dave's house! We have talked many times about the fact that birds are dinosaurs and we've covered some of the modern evidence that links them together, but how did we get to this point? In this edition we look at the historical arguments for the origins of birds and how they went from a groups that had no obvious evolutionary home to some early flirtations with dinosaurs, places around the reptile tree and then eventually settled to their now familiar place. It covers a lot of odd ideas and the problems of limited data and Charles Darwin even pops up and gets a mention. Appropriately, our guest this week is Suzy from the Casual Birder podcast and she wants to ask Dave all about dinosaur eyes and their colours and shapes.

Links:

The casual birder podcast: https://casualbirder.com/links

www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

@iszi_lawrence

@dave_hone

facebook.com/terrriblelizardspodcast