Terrible Lizards
Iszi Lawrence and David Hone
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Terrible Lizards is a podcast about Dinosaurs with Dr David Hone and Iszi Lawrence.
Available episodes
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6 days ago
TLS09E05 A Sternum talking to
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
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Apr 26, 2023
TLs09E04 Don't Mamention the neck
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/
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Mar 29, 2023
TLS09E03 Dinosaur Displays
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/
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Feb 22, 2023
TLS09E02 Dinosaurs News
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
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Jan 25, 2023
TLS09E01 Displaying Dinosaurs
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
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Nov 30, 2022
TLS08E08 Were T.Rex 70 percent bigger?
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!
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Nov 23, 2022
TLS08E07 Chewing Triceratops with Ali Nabavizadeh
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
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Nov 16, 2022
TLS8E06 Biomechanics of Dinosaur Motion
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
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Nov 9, 2022
TLS08E05 Sauropodcast
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
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Nov 2, 2022
TLS08E04 The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs
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
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Oct 26, 2022
TLS08E03 British Iguanodontids
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
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Oct 19, 2022
TLS08E02 Black Market fossils and Ornithocheirid pterosaurs
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 suppo…
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Oct 12, 2022
TLS08E01 Tyrannosaurus Bites
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
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Sep 28, 2022
TL Bonus Jurassic pterosaur: Dearc Sgiathanach
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.
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Jul 20, 2022
TLS07E08 Did Pterosaurs Squawk?
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
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Jul 13, 2022
TLS07E07 How Science Works
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/
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Jul 6, 2022
TLS07E06 Working with dinosaurs
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…
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Jun 29, 2022
TLS07E05 Pteranodon
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/
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Jun 22, 2022
TL0704 Anurognathids
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…
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Jun 15, 2022
TLS07E03 Azhdarchids
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
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Jun 8, 2022
TLS07E02 Pterosaurs in Motion
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-eas…
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Jun 1, 2022
TLS07E01 Pterodactylus
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://pter…
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Apr 27, 2022
TL BONUS Dinosaur Education
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 @…
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Mar 30, 2022
TLS06E08 Dancing Dinosaurs and Bat Noses
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.
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Mar 23, 2022
TLS06E07 The Future of Dinosaurs
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 lin…
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Mar 16, 2022
TLS06E06 Alvarezsaurs
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/
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Mar 9, 2022
TLS06E05 Evolution
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/…
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Mar 2, 2022
TL S06E04 Microraptor
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-fe…
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Feb 23, 2022
TLS06E03 Dinosaur Diets
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 abo…
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Feb 16, 2022
TLS06E02 Oviraptorosaurs
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…
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Feb 9, 2022
TLS06E01 Rhamphorhynchus
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/…
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Feb 7, 2022
TLS06E00 Series 6 Trailer
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).
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Dec 8, 2021
TLS04 Bonus Histology
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
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Nov 17, 2021
TLS05E08 Are there dinosaurs on the moon?
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
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Nov 10, 2021
TLS05E07 PaleoArt
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
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Nov 3, 2021
TLs05E06 Torosaurus
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 weir…
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Oct 27, 2021
TLS05E05 Heterodontosaurs
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 filament…
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Oct 20, 2021
TLS05E04 The Big Bird Debate
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
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Oct 13, 2021
TLS05E03 Dinosaur Size with Spanners!
We have talked before about how large some of the giant sauropods were and how being big can really affect your biology, but just how do palaeontologists weight dinosaurs from incomplete skeletons and how accurate will these methods be? Well happily we have a podcast that will tackle those very questions and delve into the history and mystery of working out how heavy dinosaurs were, how we used to get it very wrong and why even now we are not that right. Joining us as a guest this time is F1 podcaster Spanners who, it turns out, is a huge dinosaur enthusiast. He wants to ask a rather different question about dinosaur domestication than you might first expect.
Links:
Spanner's podcast: missedapexpodcast.com @SpannersReady
An old Guardian piece by Dave (for which we should point out, he didn't write the headline) on the biggest dinosaurs: https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2014/may/19/have-we-reached-peak-dinosaur
An old blog post by Dave on the problems of data gaps wh…
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Oct 6, 2021
TLS05E02 Psittacosaurus
It’s time to give some love to some dinosaurs that don’t get enough and pretty much top of that list needs to be Psittacosaurus. This (mostly) little dinosaur is one of the earlier ceratopsains but lacking the size, horns and frills of their more notable cousins, it’s sadly all too easy to see why they get ignored. But that’s a shame because as well as having some neat little features of their own (like giant cheek spikes), these animals are among the most common of any dinosaur. We have hundreds and hundreds of specimens in museums and in addition to innumerable skeletons, there are also a couple of superbly preserved ones with skin and other features intact so they are well worth some attention. Later in the episode we are joined by Sabrina and Garret from the ‘I Know Dino’ podcast (who are obviously our arch rivals) who have a question for Dave about some obscure South America theropods. And if you want more on that front, check out their recent episodes as guess who the…
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Sep 29, 2021
TLS05E01 Riparovenator and Ceratosuchops
Riparovenator and Ceratosuchops – Chris Barker and Darren Naish
Just like the start of series 3, we are kicking off the new series with a special on a new research paper (of which Dave is one of the authors) which is out today! In it, two new, large, predatory dinosaurs from the UK are named and both are part of the spinosaur group! Obviously it’s all very exciting, but to avoid things being too Dave-centric we have invited on two other palaeontologists from the paper, Chris Barker and Darren Naish. As a perfect example of the research process and scholarly work they present lots of ideas and information for Iszi to pick through while also cutting each other off and disagreeing over things too. But still, it should be a great insight into these new animals and the research that has been done on them.
Links:
Here’s the new paper itself: www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97870-8
A link to Dave’s blog post discussing the new paper: https://wordpress.com/post/archosaurmusings.…
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Sep 27, 2021
TLS05 Trailer
Series 5 trailer with Dave Hone, Iszi Lawrence, Jay Foreman, Darren Naish, Suzy Buttress, I know dino, Bec Hill and Spanners! Series 5 starts on 29th September 2021.
Links:
www.patreon.com/terriblelizards
@iszi_lawrence
@dave_hone
facebook.com/terrriblelizardspodcast
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Aug 18, 2021
TLS04 Bonus - Marine Reptiles
An interview about Marine Reptiles with Keirsten Formso @formophology. To get more free bonus content FIRST become a Terrible Lizards Patron on patreon.com/terriblelizards
In the third series of Terrible Lizards we finally edged away from dinosaurs to cover pterosaurs, but in the Mesozoic, there were far more reptiles in the sea than in the air so we really need to do them too. Happily to this end we can welcome Kiersten Formoso from the University of Southern California who is working on her PhD about the transition back to the water by various reptiles from the time of the dinosaurs. Over the course of this bonus episode we look at the rise and fall of various different groups that took to the water and the evolutionary changes that occurred to them as they adapted to a watery way of life. So sit back and enjoy an hour of live bearing giant dolphin-mimics and all kinds of others. Links: Kiersten’s webpage with links to all her projects: https://www.formorphology.com
Photos taken…
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Jul 21, 2021
TLS04E08 Your Dinosaur Questions Answered
It is the final episode this series and as usual we are answering some of your dinosaur questions (as many as we could cram into an hour). A massive thank you to all our patrons on patreon - your support means everything to us. We are planning a series 5! We will be back in the Autumn. There will be a few mid season episodes dropped here and even more content on our patreon. Got to patreon.com/terriblelizards
Questions in were asked by: Chris (from Germany), Gildas (age 8), Edward (age 37), João Barbosa, Stephen Gatehouse, Gareth, Sarah Graham, and Melissa!
We do often do live Q&As which you can find on iszitube
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Jul 14, 2021
TLS04E07 The Origins of Paleontology
Dave Hone tells Iszi Lawrence about the early days of paleontology and the very first dinosaur discoveries in the UK. We cover the perpetually unlucky Gideon Mantell and the not especially nice Richard Owen (and Mary Anning pops up though she didn't really do dinosaurs). Dr Kiki Sandford then joins us and asks what clues there are in fossils to tell us how dinosaurs behave... and things get silly.
A link to an old blogpost of Dave's including photos of the original Megalosaurus jaw at Oxford
https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/more-of-megalosaurus/
Another old blogpost but with photos of the famous Crystal Palace dinosaurs.
https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/crystal-palace-dinosaurs/
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Jul 7, 2021
S04E06 Growing Dinosaurs
Following on from our last adventure into the realm of the very biggest dinosaurs, we now have a look at the other side of this issue which is that big dinosaurs started off very small. How do you get from a 5 kg hatchling to a 50 ton monster and what does that mean for how they lived and how palaeontologists identify adults and juveniles? Are there hundreds of ‘new’ dinosaur species that are just misidentified babies and can we tell? Then we are joined by out guest, comedian Alasdair Beckett-King who wants to ask perhaps the most pertinent question we’ve ever had, namely: What would be the best dinosaur to ride?
Links:
A couple of photos showing different dinosaur egg shapes from the near spherical to the greatly elongated https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/dinosaur-egg-musings/
A blogpost by Dave about his paper on telling adults from baby dinosaurs https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/what-is-an-adult-dinosaur/
A blogpost by Dr Matt Wedel on…
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Jun 30, 2021
S04E05 The Biggest Dinosaurs
Perhaps the single most notable feature of dinosaurs is the quite extraordinary sizes that many of them achieved. We have talked before about some of the issues surrounding being big, but before now we have not tackled the most obvious question in all of this: what is the biggest dinosaur? Well as you may expect by now this isn't a simple question to answer and between fragmentary fossil remains, uncertain scaling and growth issues there is no easy answer, but we'll at least try. We are joined this time out by comedian Laura Lexx who has a question about dinosaur families (eventually, there's yet more taxonomy talk first).
Links:
An old Guardian article by Dave about they then announced largest dinosaur ever : https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2014/may/19/have-we-reached-peak-dinosaur
The first of a series of articles on the great SV-POW blog about various giants in North America and the problems of working out how big they are: https://svpow.com/2019/06/13/supersaur…
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Jun 23, 2021
S04E04 Dinosaur Farts (and Scansoriopterygids)
This time out it is a group of dinosaurs very few people will have heard of or know very much about but they are a fascinating group of small, feathered theropods who have only been on the scene for around 20 years making them very much newcomers. The tongue-twistedly-named scansoriopterygidae are a bunch of fragmentary and bizarre animals from China and include some of the strangest dinosaurs known and absolutely deserve more attention. Moving on, our guest this week is biologist and author Dr Dani Rabaiotti and if you know anything about her work you may not be surprised to know she wants to ask about the gaseous emissions of dinosaurs. You know which end.
Links:
An old guest post on Dave’s blog about the lovely little Epidexipteryx:
https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/guest-post-the-vampire-peacock-of-daohugou/
Dave’s report for The Guardian on the discovery of Yi qi: https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2015/apr/29/bird-yi-qi-the-dinosaur-evoluti…
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Jun 16, 2021
S04E03 Dinosaur Papers
Just how reliable are research papers and what goes on to get them published and accepted in the scientific literature and, critically, are they reliable? We have talked many times on the pod about scientific papers but without ever discussing what these actually are and how they get published. It’s an important aspect of science and especially with palaeontology given the huge mix of information available through museums, the media, and well, podcasts, so it’s an area really worth discussing.
This week our guest is biologist and science communicator Simon Watt, who talks about the appearances of dinosaurs and the public’s changing perception of this in relation to what the palaeontologists think.
Links:
A (very old) blogpost of Dave’s on the same general subject of how to write and get a scientific paper published: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/how-to-write-a-paper-and-get-it-published/
A piece by Dave on the problems of peer review and reporting of non…
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Jun 9, 2021
S04E02 Dinosaur social groups
There’s numerous illustrations and documentaries showing great herds of dinosaurs together and it is very common to come across the idea that various species (or entire groups like the hadrosaurs, ceratopsians and dromaeosaurs) fundamentally lived in groups. As usual though, this really oversimplifies a huge mess of extrapolations from limited fossil data and the complexities of social behaviour in living species. The perfect problem to solve in half an hour of a podcast. This time out we are joined by podcaster and science communicator George Hrab and general all-round science enthusiast. He wants to ask Dave a very speculative question about the future of dinosaur evolution and things spiral from there.
Do please support us on Patreon and give us a follow @iszi_lawrence and @dave_hone
Links:
A piece by Dave in The Guardian about his work on groups in Protoceratops: https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2014/nov/26/dinosaurs-formed-groups-throughout-their-lives-protoce…
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Jun 2, 2021
S04E01 Tyrannosaurs
Harking back to Series 1 episode 1 (a whole year ago!) we return to the tyrannosaurs, but having devoted a whole hour to T. rex then it seemed appropriate that we should try and cover the other 30ish tyrannosaur species at some point. Rexy might be the first and foremost of all dinosaurs but has dozens of relatives that are plenty interesting too and help chart the 100 million year rise of this group from small, long armed, and little headed predators to the giant monster that people are most familiar with. Joining us for the new series if comedian Sooz Kempner @soozuk who wants to know why Tyrannosaurus gets all the love when animals like Allosaurus are every bit as interesting.
Support us on patreon!
Links:
A link to one of Dave’s old blog posts discussing the issue of tyrannosaur names: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/tyrannosaurus-is-a-tyrannosaur-but-not-all-tyrannosaurs-are-tyrannosaurus/
A the first of a set of Dave’s blog posts about his tyrannosaur Zh…
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May 31, 2021
S04 Trailer - Series starts Wednesday June 2nd
Series 4 will be starting on Wednesday June 2nd.
You can also catch us going live on our 1 year anniversary at 8PM GMT on Iszitube on youtube and our facebook page (facebook.com/terriblelizardspodcast) and on Twitter.
Thank you to our patrons on Patreon who made this possible. Please go to patreon.com/terriblelizards
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Apr 7, 2021
S03E09 BONUS Chlolophyller
Many groups of Mesozoic plants are still around today so the landscapes in which the dinosaurs lived would have looked at least vaguely familiar to anyone who might be (un)lucky enough to travel back in time 150 million years. Still, plants are typically rather squishier than dinosaur bones and so their fossils are often rare. In this episode we welcome Dr Susannah Lydon to the pod to tackle the subject of plants at the time of the dinosaurs. Susie is an expert in fossil plants from the Mesozoic and so is a perfect guest to fill in the frankly colossal gap in Dave’s knowledge of plant life from this Era. Although we have talked about dinosaur diets and feeding strategies before, we really haven’t looked at the plants themselves in any detail. So this time out we’ll be talking ferns, horsetails, mosses, ginkoes and the origins of flowers and with very little on dinosaurs, but all of it relevant to understanding how these animals lived and evolved.
Once again there was a slight gl…
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Mar 17, 2021
S03E08 Your Dinosaur Questions Answered!
How stiff were dinosaur tails?
If you could find a complete skeleton of any dinosaur species, which would it be?
Why are were dinosaurs so big if big sizes are evolutionary dead ends?
It is the final episode of our third series and we put together just a few of the questions sent in from our Patreons and listeners.
We plan on doing a live show answering more of your questions which you can watch on iszitube. We will let you know exact timings on Patreon and on Facebook.
Big thank you to ALL our listeners and in particular our patrons who motivate us to keep going. In particular these wonderful people who inspired us with their questions.
Glenn, Matt Potter, David Bax, Kath Bremer, Eleanor, James Psacoe, Konstantin Rybakov, David Lowe, João Barbosa, Howard Wiseman, Stephen Gatehouse and Gutza 1.
Keep an ear to the ground for bonus episodes and you can hear these first, by signing up to Patreon. - as well as get extended interviews.
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Mar 10, 2021
S03E07 Dinosaur Evolutionary Relationships
Following on from last week's look at how dinosaurs get named, in this (Patreon picked) episode Iszi and Dave turn to the issue of dinosaur relationships. How do palaeontologists put together family trees and work out which species or group is related to which other one? And how easy and reliable is it when most dinosaurs are known from only fragments of skeletons rather than complete fossils? For our final normal episode of series 3 (have we really come this far already?) we are joined by Professor Sophie Scott who has a question about the sounds dinosaurs might have made.
Links:
Prof Sophie Scott CBE is Director of UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. RI Xmas Lecturer 2017 - listen to her podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-neuromantics/id1455641494
Here’s a link to a discussion between researchers about the vexed idea of the Ornithoscleida https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/a-discussion-not-a-war-two-opposing-experts-talk-dinosau…
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Mar 3, 2021
S03E06 Dinosaur Species and Taxonomy
In this episode we take a look at the actual identification of dinosaurs. What makes a species a species and how does this apply to fossils that are a hundred million years old? From there we look to how dinosaurs get their names where things can go wrong when it comes to correctly identifying them. Our special guest this time out is Professor Chris Jackson, geologist and science communicator par excellence, who wants to ask Dave a very pertinent question about how dinosaurs are actually defined and so what is, and isn’t, a dinosaur.
Links:
An old blog post of Dave’s about why scientific names are important and using them correctly: https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2013/jun/19/dinosaurs-fossils
Another old blog post of Dave’s about the problem of variation in species and how different is different? https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/intraspecific-variation-and-taxonomy/
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Feb 24, 2021
S03E05 Dinosaur Films
This week we have an extended interview and discussion with David Krentz on the public perception of dinosaurs and especially in film. David is a palaeoartist, but also works as a storyboard artist and character designer for Hollywood productions like the Marvel movies and has also produced and directed dinosaur documentaries so has seen things from all sides. So he’s the perfect person to bring in to chat about the creative processes and trade-offs between accuracy and realism and dramatic license, storytelling and spectacle.
Links:
An interview with David Krentz about his dinosaurian artwork by Dave https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/interview-with-david-krentz/
David’s Facebook page for his artwork https://www.facebook.com/davidkrentzart
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Feb 17, 2021
S03E04 Jurassic Park
Let’s be honest, we’ve done quite well to have held off until half way through the third series before tackling this one, but there’s been a Brachiosaurus in the room since the start of Terrible Lizards and it is very much Jurassic Park-shaped.
There’s no point dissecting all the details about the film and its depiction of dinosaurs (though we look at a few) but we focus on its appearance at the time and the effect it had on shaping the public’s perceptions of dinosaurs (for better and worse) and what that means for science educators. We also talk about other contemporary films and how things translated from books to screen and the difficulty of dealing with the blend of science and fiction.
Our guest this week is author, actor and screenwriter Emma Kennedy who wants to know just how (un)likely it is we could resurrect dinosaurs.
Links:
Emma Kennedy - https://www.emmakennedy.co.uk/ you can preorder her book Never Ending Summer now! Also her lego is amaze.
An old blog…
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Feb 10, 2021
S03E03 Iguanodon
Finally, a normal episode that both has a guest an is actually on dinosaurs. This time out we are on to the second dinosaur ever named – Iguanodon. Despite being one of the absolute originals and being known from numerous good specimens, Iguanodon (and its relatives) really doesn’t get much of a look in when it comes to artworks and documentaries and even books – it’s not a carnivore, not huge like sauropods, and doesn’t rock the funky headgear of so many other ornithischians. But it’s an important animal, both historically and now and also (inevitably) has a complicated history that means it is well worth talking about. So we do.
This week artist, writer and cartoonist Andy Riley joins us and he wants to know specifically about the function of the famous spiky thumb of Iguanodon – just what did they do with it?
Links:
A piece from the Natural History Museum in London about the Maidstone slab and the initial discovery of Iguanodon - https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/…
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Feb 3, 2021
S03E02 Pterosaurs
No dinosaurs this week! Shock, horror! It was always going to happen sooner or later as Dave does a lot of work on pterosaurs as well as on dinosaurs and we’ve had some specific requests for a pterosaur episode so here we go (and they’ll return again soon we’re sure). These flying reptiles are too often just window dressing in the background of pictures of dinosaurs but they are their own distinct evolutionary group with a fascinating array of weird features and produced the largest flying animals of all time with wingspans over 10 m. The week we make a delayed welcome to a first guest of the series and it is Dr Adam Rutherford, geneticist, author and presenter and general all round science nerd. He wants to know how the sex of dinosaur embryos was determined but mostly we end up talking about Star Wars Easter eggs.
Links:
This is a website Dave and a group of fellow pterosaur researchers set up as a one stop-shop for all things pterosaur. http://pterosaur.net
An essay on the…
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Jan 27, 2021
S03E01 Spinosaurus Megasode!
No guest this week, just a lot of Dave talking. We’ve obviously mentioned his research at various times but never really focused on it before, but now a new and big paper has just come out on the famous giant fish-eating Spinosaurus so it was a great opportunity to kick off the new series with a special on it. Many people will know Spinosaurus from Jurassic Park III and it has become (in)famous for various interpretations of its biology which has been hampered by the fact that the fossils are so fragmentary and researchers disagree over the taxonomy of various bits that may or may not belong to it. New discoveries and research has ramped all of this up and now Dave is stepping in with a long paper and a revised idea about how this enigmatic giant might have lived.
Links:
Here’s alink to the actual paper, assuming you really want to wade through it all:
https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2021/3219-the-ecology-of-spinosaurus
And here’s the first of a series of bl…
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Jan 20, 2021
S03E00 Trailer (with a Vengeance)
The new series of Terrible Lizards - a Podcast about Dinosaurs with Dr Dave Hone and Iszi Lawrence is starting on January 27th 2021. Guests include Emma Kennedy, Adam Rutherford, David Krentz, Andy Riley, Sophie Scott and Chris Jackson.
Thank you to everyone for spreading the word and supporting on Patreon. Visit www.terriblelizards.co.uk @iszi_lawrence @dave_hone
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Nov 25, 2020
TLS02 BONUS DINOSAUR! ANKYLOSAURUS and friends.
This is a between-series BONUS that was previous released to Patrons on Patreon. In it a palaeontologist makes up for Dave’s inadequacies when dealing with the ornithischians. So welcome Dr Victoria Arbour of the Royal BC Museum of Victoria, Canada to talk with Dave and Iszi about the armoured dinosaurs, the ankylosaurs. She is a world expert on this amazing and unfairly overlooked group and joins us to talk through their origins, evolution and weird features – not just the famous armour and tail clubs, but also their convoluted noses too. Victoria has published numerous papers on these animals including naming several species, first and foremost among them for Terrible Lizards listeners being Zuul, the animal that guest Ralph Attanasia (S1, E4) turned into a life-sized cake.
Links:
Pseudoplocephalus is Victoria’s blog https://pseudoplocephalus.com
Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs is a popular dinosaur website where Victoria is an occasional contributor https://chasmosaurs.com/…
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Nov 3, 2020
TLS02E08 Dinosaur Questions 2
It the end of series questions episode. This time Iszi and Dave... well Dave mainly answer Patrons' Dinosaur questions. Including
How would dinosaur evolution panned out if the asteroid had missed?
Could sauropods swim?
Is the Blue Whale REALLY larger than dinosaurs?
Were there dinosaur KT extinction survivors in Antarctica?
The 'Friends' question...
Velociraptor toe functionality...
Bird Brains...
How do we differentiate species?
And if we know anything about how social dinosaurs were?
With massive thanks to all out patrons,and especially Geraint Lewis, Shala Howell, Eric Farenger, Gutza1, Joe McLachlan, Javaraptor (G Hancock), Andrew White, Aisling Spain and Richard Bald.
Iszi Lawrence's book The Unstoppable Letty Pegg is now available as an Audiobook on Audible www.iszi.com/book
Please fill in Dave's Impact Survery: https://www.davehone.co.uk/outreach/impact-survey/
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Oct 27, 2020
TLS02E07 Bird origins
The idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs has actually been around for a century now, though it has perhaps only become relatively common knowledge with the general public in the last couple of decades. Even so, while many people now know this, quite why we know the two groups are linked (aside from the plethora of feathered dinosaurs) is often not understood. There’s only so much we can cover in one podcast, but this week we go through some of the features of birds that are seen in dinosaur fossils and so help show the evolutionary links between the two. Our special guest this time is Lucy Eckersley The Punk Biologist who makes the mistake of asking about sexual selection in dinosaurs about which Dave would happily talk for hours if allowed to.
A post on the recognition of the importance of Archaeopteryx for bird origins by Darwin: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/the-historical-impact-of-archaeopteryx/
A blogpost on the dinosaurian furcula: https://archosaurmu…
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Oct 20, 2020
TLS02E06 Dinosaur locomotion
There are a few animals that are basically motionless for part or even most of their lives (like barnacles) but the average animal is one that moves. Dinosaurs obviously did so, but things inevitably get complicated quickly when trying to work out exactly how well they could run, jump and climb, how fast they were and what they could and couldn’t do to get around. This time out we tackle these issues and the information we have to work from, especially footprints. We are then joined by Dr Esther Odekunle who has a very pertinent question about dinosaurs in water.
A piece by Dr Pete Falkingham on sauropod hand prints https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/guest-post-tracking-the-hand-prints-of-sauropods/
A piece on one of the rare tail drag marks for a dinosaur: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/sauropod-tails-up-or-down/#more-2946
A piece by Dr Darren Naish at Tetrapod Zoology on dinosaur climbing https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/c…
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Oct 13, 2020
TLS02E05 Dinosaur Food
It’s commonly known that Tyrannosaurus carnivorous, but this is perhaps as far as most people would be prepared to go. Other than the most obvious points (the ones in its mouth for starters) though, what do we actually know about dinosaur diets and how do we know it? In this episode Dave and Iszi dive into the guts of dinosaurs and look at their teeth, jaws, stomachs and yes, coprolites are back again. From microscopic scratches on the enamel of their teeth through to the last meals that they ate, dinosaur fossils provide a surprising range of information on what they ate, and how. After digesting this gastronomic information, we are joined by Robin Ince for an aperitif of dinosaur cannibalism and egg thievery.
An old blogpost by Dave on an early herbivorous theropod he helped to name and describe https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/a-last-bit-of-limusaurus-–-theropod-diets-and-herbivory/
One of Dave’s blogposts on the feeding behaviour of giant Mongolian tyrannos…
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Oct 6, 2020
TLS02E04 The Dinosaur Extinction
If there's one thing that everyone knows about dinosaurs it is that they are extinct. And of course this is to a degree quite wrong since birds are dinosaurs and are very much alive. Still, that Tyrannosaurus, Diplodocus, Stegosaurus and the rest are long gone is well known but the scientific (and often very unscientific) arguments about exactly what killed them off have been a source of discussion for over a century. Here we have a quick stroll through some of those ideas and deal with the prime suspect of the last 30 years an impact from outer space. Happily, we have the Bad Astronomer himself, Phil Plait, as our guest so the questions go both ways on dinosaurs and asteroids.
We hope you enjoy the cold open.
A short National Geographic article on the issue of asteroids vs volcanoes: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/dinosaur-extinction/
A piece by Professor Mike Benton on mass extinctions: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ca…
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Sep 29, 2020
TLS02E03 Were Dinosaurs cold blooded?
In this episode we finally fulfil a promise from before and talk more about the physiology dinosaurs – how ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ they were and what that might mean for their levels of activity, growth, behaviour and even where they could live given local climates. It’s a horribly complex subject and so come and listen to us grossly oversimplify things and not make things as clear as we’d like. Also on this show we end up at the end of the digestive system as our guest, the Skep-Chick herself, Rebecca Watson asks about the second most famous bit of Jurassic Park and just how much waste would be coming out of a dinosaur. Don’t say we never tackle the critical questions.
A recent paper on the possibility of feathers in some of the earliest dinosaurs https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223872
A very recent paper on the growth rate and maturity of one of the abelisaurs https://peerj.com/articles/9771/
Rebecca Watson's patreon with links to all her…
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Sep 22, 2020
TLS02E02 Protoceratops
This week we tackle a small dinosaur that should be much better known, a classic contemporary of Velociraptor and the other half of the fighting dinosaurs, Protoceratops. While nothing like as famous as its (much) larger cousin Triceratops, Protoceratops is an interesting and important dinosaur. Thanks to a multitude of fossils, including animals of all different ages, we have a fantastic set of data to work from and as a result a lot of research has been done on this fascinating frilled dinosaur. This week our guest is singer Faith Child who wants to know just how close (or indeed far) humans are to dinosaurs evolutionarily. Things rapidly descend into developmental biology (not Dave’s forte) but happily we have an excerpt from Faith’s new track “Near Era, feat. Faith Child and KB and Ty Brasel” to play us out.
Links:
A link to Dave’s paper on Protoceratops forming groups including the specimen of four juveniles https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.…
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Sep 15, 2020
TLS02E01 Velociraptor
It is appropriate to kick off the second series of Terrible Lizards with an animal famous for its dangerous feet. Few people had heard of Velociraptor before Jurassic Park, but it is now an A-lister alongside Tyrannosaurus as one of the few dinosaurs almost anyone can name. With fame though has come huge misconceptions about its size, appearance, capabilities and behaviour. The large, scaly, super-intelligent pack-hunter of large prey is likely none of these things and Dave and Iszi work their way through the myths and realities of this little Mongolian predator. Our first guest of the season is half of Penn & Teller, the juggler and magician Penn Jillette, who wants to know about the longevity of dinosaur lineages and how common they were in the Mesozoic.
Links:
Photos of a famous Velociraptor specimen locked on (possible) mortal combat with a Protoceratops: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/a-bit-on-the-‘fighting-dinosaurs’/
A description of Dave’s wo…
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Sep 10, 2020
Series Two Trailer
The new series will be starting on Wednesday 16th September 2020. We have a plethora of guests and interesting dinosaur subjects to explore!
Guest this series include Penn Jillette, Phil Plait, Robin Ince, Rebecca Watson, Esther Odekunde, Faith Child and Lucy Eckersley.
Keep an eye out for our bonus content on Patreon and announcements on Twitter and Facebook.
www.patreon.com/terriblelizards
www.facebook.com/terriblelizardspodcast/
@iszi_lawrence @dave_hone #TerribleLizards
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Jul 14, 2020
S01E08 Dinosaur Questions
In this last episode of the first season we try to bring a few things up to date. There’s more mistakes and miss-speaks from Dave to repair and correct, and a few things that have come up since shows were recorded or broadcast we want to give updates on. Mostly though, we are answering questions from our Patreons and other commenters that people have sent in. There’s a lot of ground to cover quickly and lots of things that are still coming in future episodes so we don’t always get into the greatest detail but among others, there’s bits on Triassic dinosaurs, dinosaur diseases, evidence for dinosaur behaviour, and how can you support palaeontology.
There’s no special guest this week and we’ll now be taking a break for a while so we can recharge and come back stronger in September (ish). We do though plan to record one or two deep dive episodes during the break that will be available only to our Patreons for now, so if you want to help keep Terrible Lizards going and get som…
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Jul 7, 2020
S01E07 Fossil Collecting
In this episode, we take a look at the actual process of finding, excavating, preparing and then exhibiting dinosaur fossils. How do palaeontologists know where to find fossils, what do they look for, how do they get them out of the ground? From there we move onto safely transporting fossils out of the field and into the museum and discuss the process of preparing the bones free of the entombing rocks and then getting them arranged back into the form of a full skeleton to go on display in a museum. It's all an odd mix of techniques from the 21st and 18th centuries. To round us off, we are joined by podcaster and QI elf, Dan Schreiber who wants to ask about the best way to go about owning a dinosaur fossil.
Round up post of a huge series on Dave's blog about preparing a tyrannosaur fossil by Darren Tanke https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/darren-tanke%e2%80%99s-gorgosaurus-preparation-final-roundup/
And the resulting paper that Dave and Darren coauthored about using th…
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Jun 30, 2020
S01E06 Weird and Wonderful Dinosaurs
To most eyes, dinosaurs are unusual looking animals but on this week’s show we take a look at some that are weird and wonderful even by the standards of dinosaurs. We start with the huge theropods of Late Cretaceous Mongolia, the sickle-clawed Theirizinosaurs and boat-faced Deinocheirus with a mention of the tiny ant-eating alvarezsaurs. From here, we move to Europe and ancient archipelagos that produced some dwarf species of huge animals and giant weird versions of small ones. We round off with some unusual and interesting adaptations that show up in multiple different dinosaurs and show the power of convergent evolution across tens of millions of years. Finally, we are joined by comedian Alice Fraser @aliterative who wants to ask about how dinosaurs might have done if alive today. (You should also check out her many podcasts and watch her special on Amazon Prime.)
An old article of Dave’s on the astounding diversity of dinosaurs https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/jun/…
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Jun 23, 2020
S01E05 Dinosaur Reproduction
Warning: Our guest Richard Herring (53 mins 50 secs) uses colloquialisms for dinosaur male bits - poss best check before letting kids listen.
Reproduction is a fundamental of life but it’s an area of dinosaur biology rarely discussed at any length though this week we will tackle that area of ignorance. Part of the problem is inevitably the lack of data palaeontologists have of, ahem, certain dinosaur parts. However, it’s not an area that has gone unstudied and thanks to the evidence of numerous fossils and in particular various nests and eggs, we do know quite a bit more about their reproductive biology than you may imagine. There’s good evidence in various linages for parents looking after their young and for some complex nest structures, and in the right circumstances we can tell males from females. Our guest this week is the comedian Richard Herring who lends his unique approach to biology (OK, he says some faintly rude words about male dinosaur bits that you might not want t…
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Jun 17, 2020
S01E04 Triceratops
This time out it’s another iconic dinosaur and the beautiful Triceratops. These huge animals with their famous three horns and large frill are a major part of so many documentaries and films, if only so they can be seen to be battling with Tyrannosaurus. As with so many of the most famous dinosaurs, Triceratops is actually quite unusual and not really representative of the group to which it belongs. It is the largest of the ceratopsians (or horned dinosaurs) and the only one with a solid frill, and was also probably rather less gregarious than many of its near relatives. We talk about these features and the possible functions of its amazing headgear, before we are joined by this week’s guest - TV’s cake-maker and podcaster Ralph Attanasia. He has a specific and challenging question for Dave about dinosaur faces and their cheeks (or lack thereof).
CakeBossRalph
An old blogpost of Dave’s looking at the details of a Triceratops skull on display in Oxford: https://archosaurmusin…
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Jun 10, 2020
S01E03 Dinosaur Feathers
In this episode we take a look at dinosaur skin and talk about the changing appearances of dinosaurs over the last 150 years. Scientists have been constantly updating their ideas about the look of various species and new evidence unfolds and our understanding improves, from their earliest depictions as lumbering lizards, though to the discovery of feathers in dinosaurs at the close of the 20th Century. We now know that many dinosaurs, and not just those closes to birds, had feathers and some very distantly related groups also had filamentous structures which could even be true feathers. However, gaps in the fossil record means that for many lineages it is uncertain quite what species had in terms of scales, feathers or both. On the upside, the discovery of many exceptionally preserved fossils has now allowed palaeontologists to being to investigate some incredible details of dinosaur appearances, including their patterns and even colours. We are joined by historian (and dinosaur aficio…
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Jun 1, 2020
S01E02 Diplodocus
For our second episode we take a look at the archetypal big dinosaur, Diplodocus. It has an important place in dinosaur history as one of the first very complete animals found, and the first to be cast with copies shipped around the world. As a result, Diplodocus had become lodged in the public mind as a ‘typical’ sauropod but it has plenty of features that make it unique and unusual. We cover its name which relates to its unusual whip-tail, and discuss how these huge animals held their tails and what they used them for. At the other end we talk about their long necks and remarkably little heads with their ususual feeding strategy. Then we dive into their amazing air-filled skeletons and discuss how even these 25 m and 30 m long animals are much lighter than you might think. Finally, we are joined by special guest comedian Jo Caulfield, who asks Dave about why dinosaurs like Diplodocus got so big.
Dave’s Guardian article about the removal of ‘Dippy’ from the Natural History…
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Jun 1, 2020
S01E01 Tyrannosaurus
For our first ever episode of Terrible Lizards we start, perhaps inevitably, with the most famous and iconic dinosaur ever – Tyrannosaurus. (Actually I wanted to do Nqwebasaurus but Iszi wouldn't let me). The king is an absolute cultural icon and appears in pretty much every dinosaur movie and documentary of the last 50 years. As science progresses though, that mostly means that the public perception of this animal has got more and more out of tune with our modern understanding. So in this episode we talk about their giant heads and weird teeth, famously small arms, super-senses and tackle the vexed question of were they predators or scavengers? We round off with the issues of the mystery dwarf tyrannosaur Nanotyrannus and whether it is, or isn’t just a juvenile rex. Then the brilliant natural history broadcaster Chris Packham joins us to share his love of Tyrannosaurus and to ask Dave what he thinks a Tyrannosaurus would look like in real life.
Links:
Dave’s Royal Institution…
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Jun 1, 2020
S01E00 Trailer
A peak at the upcoming series of Terrible Lizards, a podcast about dinosaurs with Dr David Hone and Iszi Lawrence. Guest this series include Chris Packham, Jo Caulfield, Alice Fraser, Richard Herring, Tom Holland and Ralph Attanasia.
Please subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Please support the show via our Patreon and find us on Facebook.
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