Palaeo After Dark

The gang discusses two papers that use the trace fossil record to give us a more detailed understanding of the impacts of mass extinctions. Meanwhile, Curt has a new CSI, Amanda has too many synapsids, and James "understands comedy". Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about the marks that feet make on the ground and how these marks can tell us about things that died when really bad things happened. They look at two times in the past that a lot of stuff died all of a sudden. The first paper looks at when some big angry animals that are aunts and uncles to things with hair lived. This is from a place where there is a lot of dead things and also foot marks. The paper shows that the death of these big angry animals can be seen if you look for the dead parts or if you look at the feet marks. The second paper looks at a time when a huge rock hit the ground and nearly killed everything. This paper looks at how foot marks and other marks in the ground changed before and after the rock hit at the place where the rock hit. What they find is that, the rock hitting caused there to not be a lot of marks because things were probably dead. But after a pretty short time, there were a lot or marks again and those marks were not just at the top but also showed that animals were moving up and down as well in the ground. References: Marchetti, Lorenzo, et al. "Permian-Triassic vertebrate footprints from South Africa: Ichnotaxonomy, producers and biostratigraphy through two major faunal crises." Gondwana Research 72 (2019): 139-168. Rodríguez-Tovar, Francisco J., et al. "Rapid macrobenthic diversification and stabilization after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event." Geology (2020).

The gang discusses two papers about the ecological data that we can learn from looking at trace fossils. The first paper looks at a unique ancient crocodilian behavior, and the second paper shows similar shore bird behaviors over the course of tens of millions of years. Meanwhile, James is full of bones, Amanda is honored, and Curt loves Hanna Barbera. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about foot marks. They talk about the foot marks of two-legged animals with no hair and no teeth that can usually fly, and also the foot marks of two-legged animals that are usually four-legged, with big teeth and long faces and hard skin. The foot marks of two-legged animals with no hair or teeth that can fly are fun because they look at ones that have been known about for a very long time, but no one has ever done anything with them. They are not so old, and they look at them and some ones that are very very old, and find that they have the same sort of groups of foot marks, even though one is very old and very far away from the other one, which is much less old. They also say that you can see the same sort of groups of foot marks today, too. The other foot marks are from animals that are usually four-legged, but this one is two-legged. That is not so weird, because they were two-legged a long, long time ago. But this one is two-legged after we thought they all were four-legged. That's weird because at the same time there were very large angry animals with big teeth and no hair, which people thought maybe made it so these other usually four-legged animals with big teeth and long faces and hard skin couldn't be two-legged anymore. Maybe that isn't really the case, because it doesn't look like these foot marks were made by something that is only going two-legged for a short time. References: Lockley, Martin, et al. "Bird tracks from the Green River Formation (Eocene) of Utah: ichnotaxonomy, diversity, community structure and convergence." Historical Biology (2020): 1-18. Kim, Kyung Soo, et al. "Trackway evidence for large bipedal crocodylomorphs from the Cretaceous of Korea." Scientific Reports 10.1 (2020): 1-13.

The gang discuss two papers that describe unique animal fossils which have been known but haven't (until now) been formally described. The first is "Collins Monster", a lobopod from the Cambrian, and the second is a fossil dolphin which is similar to an orca. Meanwhile, James rehabilitates some dolphins, Amanda saw a thing, and Curt witnesses true beauty. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Version): Today our friends talk about a strange animal with cute legs and big parts that go to a point, and a really big animal that used to have hair that looks like an animal with no legs but actually does have legs. Both of these things have been known about for a long time, but no one gave them a name. They were used to figure out the family tree of animals, but never had a name. These papers give them a name, which is a very important thing. The strange animal with cute legs and big parts that go to a point is very close to other strange animals with cute legs that we have talked about before. The paper does put them in a different box than we are used to seeing, which we talk about a little and find maybe a little strange. The big animal that used to have hair and looks like an animal that has no legs but it actually has legs looks like it is close to one animal that had hair and looks like it has no legs, which shows that these things show up many times as time goes on. They also show some family trees, but only one is in the paper, the rest are in the other stuff on the space where people store all their stuff today. References: Caron, Jean‐Bernard, and Cédric Aria. "The Collins' monster, a spinous suspension‐feeding lobopodian from the Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia." Palaeontology (2020). Boessenecker, Robert W., et al. "Convergent Evolution of Swimming Adaptations in Modern Whales Revealed by a Large Macrophagous Dolphin from the Oligocene of South Carolina." Current Biology (2020).

Hey now, you're an all-star, get the game on, go play. Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid! All that glitters is a long discussion about Mesozoic eggs. One of the papers we discuss suggests that the evolution of hard calcification in dinosaur eggs might have evolved independently multiple times. The second paper tries to determine the origins of a cryptic large soft-shelled egg. Meanwhile, James vents on his victims, Curt ruins the fun of Shrek, and Amanda has an egg guy. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about two papers that look at the things that small baby animals pop out of. Both papers are from a time when there were big angry animals that some people and all children really love. The first paper asks whether or not the things that these babies pop out of were soft or hard. While most of the things which babies pop out of from these angry animals are hard, hard things are also more able to become rocks than soft things. Also, each of the different types of angry animals seem to make their hard things in different ways. This paper looks at the things that babies pop out of from angry animals that are much earlier than the things we usually see. These angry animals all seem to be popping out of soft things, and since they are not close brothers and sisters, this means that angry animals each came up with different ways to make that things babies pop out of hard. The second paper finds a very large soft thing that babies pop out of. Given how big this thing is, they have problems finding out what could have made this thing. They don't have a perfect answer, but they think that maybe it could be from an angry thing that lived in the water. The problem here is that the babies may have died if they were in the water while in the thing. However, it is possible to still have the thing that the babies pop out of be a real thing even if the babies then stay in the mom before they pop out. References: Legendre, Lucas J., et al. "A giant soft-shelled egg from the Late Cretaceous of Antarctica." Nature (2020): 1-4. Norell, Mark A., et al. "The first dinosaur egg was soft." Nature (2020): 1-5.

The gang discusses two papers that look at important points in the evolutionary history of land plants. The first paper is a review of the available data for the first time plants moved onto land in the Ordovician, and the second paper looks at the impact that the evolution of herbivory had on plant diversity. Meanwhile, James invents a new insect, Amanda reaches out and touches someone, and Curt is impressed by a brief moment of professionalism. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition) Our friends talk about very old green things that grow in the ground and use the sun. The first paper looks at this very old time when green things move from water to the ground. This was a very very very long time ago, and most of what we have that lets us know about these green things are actually the small bits that the green things let go of. This paper looks at what we know about these first green things move onto land, and says that maybe as these green things go to the ground they may have changed the air. Also, the time that these things move onto land is the same time that things in the water become more different. The second paper looks at when animals started to first eat these green things. The paper looks at changes in the animals that eat these green things, and tries to see if these animals can change how many green things there are. Big animals eat lots of different types of green things, while small animals often eat just a few types of green things. How big the animals appears to change the number of different green things. This means that animals that eat green things can have a strong control on the number of different types of green things. References: Brocklehurst, Neil, Christian F. Kammerer, and Roger J. Benson. "The origin of tetrapod herbivory: effects on local plant diversity." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 287.1928 (2020): 20200124. Servais, Thomas, et al. "Revisiting the Great Ordovician Diversification of land plants: Recent data and perspectives." Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (2019): 109280.

The gang discusses two papers about arthropod evolution and development. One paper focuses on the evolution of arthropod segmentation, and the other summarizes research on the development of the insect wing. Meanwhile, Amanda has a beer with no unintended consequences, Curt makes a shocking discovery about marketing, and James goes from 0 to professional in milliseconds. As we did last time, here are some organizations you can donate to: https://blacklivesmatter.com/ https://bailproject.org/ https://www.aclu.org/ Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends look at small things with many legs and many body parts. The first paper is looking at how these small things with many legs and many body parts first grew the parts they needed to fly. The paper says lots of words about this, but there are two big ideas, saying that these body parts that the body parts these animals needed to fly grew from either the up on the side or down on the side. It turns out that maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. No, really, they probably grew from both up and down on the side, there was another paper that came out while this one was being worked on that says that, and they talk about it in this paper. The second paper looks at how these animals came to have many body parts, and says how it is important that we look at the things that are very very very dead, as well as the very very very very tiny bits of living things that carry the things our bodies need to know to make stuff. References: Chipman, Ariel D., and Gregory D. Edgecombe. "Developing an integrated understanding of the evolution of arthropod segmentation using fossils and evo-devo." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 286.1912 (2019): 20191881. Clark-Hachtel, Courtney M., and Yoshinori Tomoyasu. "Exploring the origin of insect wings from an evo-devo perspective." Current opinion in insect science 13 (2016): 77-85.

(Editor's Note: This episode was recorded a month ago. Everyone at Palaeo After Dark stands with the protesters fighting for justice. Black Lives Matter!) The gang discuss two papers about large mammal-like animals. The first is a Triassic synapsid the size of an elephant, and the second is a mammaliaform from the late Cretaceous of Madagascar. Meanwhile, James has a new technology to discuss, Amanda's cats get involved in some unique business ventures, and Curt appreciates some choice scale-bar decisions. https://blacklivesmatter.com/ https://action.aclu.org/give/now Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition) Our friends talk about big boys. These big boys are great great great great great great brothers and sisters to things that have hair and are warm. The first of these big boys is the oldest and it lived a long time ago when big angry animals were just starting to show up. This big boy is a REALLY big boy. This big boy shows that not just the angry animals, but a lot of other animals, were getting big at this time. This means that maybe something was happening that made it so getting big was a thing lots of different animals could do. Our second big boy was living just before a rock killed the big angry animals. The second big boy is not nearly as big as the first big boy, but we look at the others boys with hair it was pretty big. This big boy also has lots of weird things in its hard parts that we usually do not see in animals with hair at this time. This big boy lived in a place that was not a part of all the other land and was surrounded by water. This second big boy is another animal that got big when it came to this place. This place has been away from the land for a very very very long time, and so the animals at this place have been different for a long time. References: Sulej, Tomasz, and Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki. "An elephant-sized Late Triassic synapsid with erect limbs." Science 363.6422 (2019): 78-80. Krause, David W., et al. "Skeleton of a Cretaceous mammal from Madagascar reflects long-term insularity." Nature (2020): 1-7.

The gang discusses two papers about archosaurs. The first paper looks at the trends in brain size relative to body size in birds over their entire evolutionary history. The second paper revisits the dinosaur Spinosaurus and adds more information to the debate over whether this animal had a semi-aquatic lifestyle. Meanwhile, James has some villagers he needs to "un-person", Curt gives alternative definitions to slang, and Amanda just disappears (I'm sure she'll be fine). Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about thinks they fly and something that moved through the water. The first paper looks at the brains of things that fly. As the body gets bigger, the brain usually gets bigger as well. But sometimes the way in which the brain gets bigger can change. Sometimes the brain gets bigger faster than the body and sometimes it gets bigger slower than the body. When looking at very old things that fly, what they find is that when the body gets smaller, the brain stays larger. This is something that big angry things which are brother and sister to the things that fly did as well. But later things that fly start changing how the brain gets bigger, with some things having their brains get way bigger faster than the body. This is often found in things that fly which are able to talk and use things which can make stuff work. The second paper looks at an angry animal that some people think may move through the water and other people think those people are wrong. This paper finds more parts of the animal (the part at the end which can be moved up and down or side to side), which can help us better understand what this angry animal might have done. They find that the part at the end can shake to the side really well, which is something we see in animals that can move well through water. They use this to say that this adds more facts that say this thing may have moved through water. References: Ibrahim, Nizar, et al. "Tail-propelled aquatic locomotion in a theropod dinosaur." Nature (2020): 1-4. Ksepka, Daniel T., et al. "Tempo and Pattern of Avian Brain Size Evolution." Current Biology (2020).

The gang discusses two papers about unique taphonomic conditions. One paper describes how these strange "train wrecks" of crinoid columnals might have formed, and the other paper models how bone jams in Dinosaur National Park could have formed. Meanwhile, James's computer has a flux capacitor, Amanda mishears the best new BBC crime drama, and Curt enjoys the chance to talk about Nathan Fillion vehicles. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about animals with hard parts on their insides. Some of these animals have long arms with lots of parts and look like they sit on sticks. Others have many inside hard parts in place along their backs, and that is where they get their names. The animals with the long arms with lots of parts sometimes break into small pieces when they die. Usually they break into lots of little single round things, or they are very quickly covered up and are found all put together. But sometimes they break into big pieces that look like a train ran into another train. This paper talks about why they do that. They have long, strong bits of stuff like what is found on your knee. This stuff does not break down so easy and sometimes that is why you get these bigger pieces. The other paper looks at animals with hard parts inside their bodies put in a place along their backs, and what happens when these animals die and their hard parts come together in a moving water place. This paper does this by making tiny ones of the hard parts and putting them in a not-real moving water place. They find that these hard parts easily stick together and it explains why some of the these hard parts look the different ways they do once the animals are dead. References: Donovan, Stephen K. "Train crash crinoids revisited." Lethaia. Carpenter, Kenneth. "Use of scaled dinosaur bones in taphonomic water flume experiments." Die Naturwissenschaften 107.3 (2020): 15-15.

The gang discusses two papers that look at modifications of the vertebrate hand. The first looks at how the lobe fin evolved into the vertebrate hand, and the second paper looks at the early limb transformations of early whales as hands became fins. Meanwhile, James's computer is a time traveler, Amanda is upset that everyone is upset about Bunny Day, and Curt wonders about numbers higher than 10. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about how hands got started, and also how hands can become things that let animals move through the water. When this happens, we don't have a lot of remains because lots of the hard parts for these animals that are moving into or out of the water aren't there for us to look at. These two papers talk about new remains that have been found which give us more hard parts to look at so we can better understand how this happens. The first paper looks at new remains of old animals that let us know what the first animals which would have arms and legs and a back and lived on land looked like. This also lets us learn more about how hands first started. Big hard parts that used to be used to go through the water had some of those hard parts change to make fingers. While these first fingers started to form, the rest of the animal looked like it lived in the water. The second paper looks at another type of animal that later on moved off the land and back into the water. When that happened, the hands become more like things that are used to move through the water. This animal is just starting to move into the water, but its great great great great children would be large animals with warm blood who move through the water. This animal that is just starting to move into the water shows changes in the hand that we usually see with things in water, but also has some hard parts that we see on land. References: Cloutier, Richard, et al. "Elpistostege and the origin of the vertebrate hand." Nature 579.7800 (2020): 549-554. Vautrin, Quentin, et al. "From limb to fin: an Eocene protocetid forelimb from Senegal sheds new light on the early locomotor evolution of cetaceans." Palaeontology 63.1 (2020): 51-66.

That gang discusses two papers about fossil soft-bodied Cambrian organisms; one of which is a unique lobopod and the other is a fossil worm. Meanwhile, Amanda could go for some fish, Curt can't stop the puns, James is going to be a cowboy. Up-Goer Five (James Edition): This week the group looks at two papers that are looking at two very old animals that have long bodies with no legs. One of these is a true animal with a long body and no legs, but the other is actually an animal that would usually have a short body and lots of legs but has grown a long body with very few legs and live in a long hard home that they make. This animal is actually part of the group that is the parents of animals with many legs and hard outer skin. This animal seems to have grabbed small bits of food with the legs that it has left and live inside the hard home it made, a very different way of living to the rest of its family. The other animal is a true animal with long body and no legs. It has been known for a long time but we did not know what the head looked like and now we do. As well as the head, the paper looks at the very small hard parts on its long body to show that it is not the animal that people thought it was, but a new animal! In total, things with long bodies and no legs are very good. References: Howard, Richard J., et al. "A Tube-Dwelling Early Cambrian Lobopodian." Current Biology (2020). Whitaker, Anna F., et al. "Re-description of the Spence Shale palaeoscolecids in light of new morphological features with comments on palaeoscolecid taxonomy and taphonomy." PalZ (2020): 1-14.

The gang talks about two papers which look at the ecology of the Ediacaran. One paper uses trace fossils to infer how ecological systems change as we move from the Ediacaran to the Cambrian, and the second paper identifies some interesting features previously undocumented in Ediacaran fossils. Meanwhile, Curt has ideas about sponges, the internet destroys James's comedic timing, and Amanda is happy to finally put those years of teaching physiology to good use. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about the time just before we have a lot of dead things that can appear in rocks. The first paper looks at the tracks left behind by animals and other things as they change through time. In the time before when we have a lot of dead things in rocks, there are still tracks. As we study these tracks, it turns out that there are lots of changes in these tracks that we didn't know about. It turns out that tracks show life was doing lots of things that we didn't see because the dead things themselves didn't get into rocks. This means the big changes we see as soon as dead things appear in the rocks might have been happening earlier. The next paper looks at a group of weird things that were around a lot before we had a lot of dead things in the rocks. These weird things are like sticks with bits on either side. There used to be lots of these stick things, and it turns out that these stick things had small lines that goes to each of these sticks. These lines are very small, which is why it was so hard to find them. The paper thinks that these lines might mean that all of these sticks are a repeat of the same stick over and over again. This is something that some things that make their own food from the sun do today, meaning that making more of themselves by repeating over and over again might be something that first happened a long time ago. References: Liu, Alexander G., and Frances S. Dunn. "Filamentous Connections between Ediacaran Fronds." Current Biology (2020). Laing, Brittany A., et al. "A protracted Ediacaran–Cambrian transition: an ichnologic ecospace analysis of the Fortunian in Newfoundland, Canada." Geological Magazine 156.9 (2019): 1623-1630.

The gang discusses two papers that look at the human impact on the fossil record. The first paper runs multiple model studies to try and determine when hominines (the group that includes all of our ancestors) first began significantly impacting the biosphere. The second paper estimates what our future fossil record may look like by using the state of Michigan as a model system (much to Amanda's delight). Meanwhile, Amanda attempts to train a cat, Curt and James invent the best machine, James has his mind blown, and everyone wonders what the "prepper layer" of the Anthropocene will look like in a few million years. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about how people have changed the world. First, they talk about how big brains might have led to lost of animals dying. This first paper looks at how brains got larger in the great great great great parents of people over time. They run a lot of numbers in a computer in order to find out if the real big animals that died went away because of people or because of changes in the places where these animals live. They look at how big the brains of these people were, as well as how much rain fell and if there were trees. What they find is that, after running all the numbers, is that the best answer out of all the things they looked at was that these animals started to die when the brains of people got bigger. They think this could mean that the people with bigger brains started to take food from some of these big animals, and that made it harder for these big animals to stay living. The second paper looks at what we will leave behind after people are gone in the rocks. It uses a state that looks like a hand (and which one of our friends really really likes) as a way to look into this. Turns out, people cover things in ground a lot more than would usually happen without people. But people only cover in ground a small number of animals, like people, dogs, cats, and animals that we use on places where we make food. This means that the rocks after we are gone will look very different from the rocks before us. These rocks will be filled with just a few things, and most of those things will probably be in the same position. Also, a lot of the animals will all be men and all will have died for the same reasons. References: Faurby, Søren, et al. "Brain expansion in early hominins predicts carnivore extinctions in East Africa." Ecology Letters. Plotnick, Roy E., and Karen A. Koy. "The Anthropocene Fossil Record of Terrestrial Mammals." Anthropocene (2019): 100233.

The gang celebrates their 7th anniversary by inflicting pain on themselves for your amusement by discussing a classic paper, Gould's "Paradox of the First Tier". They discuss the paper in its historical context, and also how our knowledge of mass extinctions has changed and evolved from this paper. Meanwhile, James comes up with unconventional ways to communicate, Amanda may need some more whiskey to get through this, and Curt is all smiles. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends have fun on the day that comes around every year which is when they first started doing this thing. They talk about a paper that is old but looking to the time ahead. This paper is interested in how things die, especially when a lot of things die. There are bad times in the past when lots of things have died all at once. This paper points out that these bad times might be really important. These bad times when lots of things die all at once might act to change the direction of how life is changing through time. Life might be changing in one way and doing just fine, but when one of these bad times happens the things that were doing well might do bad but the things that were doing bad might do really well. Our friends talk about how the ideas brought up in this old paper have changed over time. References: Gould, Stephen Jay. "The paradox of the first tier: an agenda for paleobiology." Paleobiology 11.1 (1985): 2-12.

The gang discusses two papers about unique fossil preservation. One paper looks at how fossil root systems can inform our understanding of early Devonian forests, and the other paper shows how slime molds can be preserved in the fossil record. Meanwhile, Amanda is excited for questionable reasons, James prepares for the pain, and Curt learns his role in the friendship. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about weird cool things that have only one piece but can get very big, and the tall green things with many pieces above and under ground, that is trees. Because trees is a word we can use. We focus on the pieces under ground. The weird cool things that have only one piece are found in old tree blood. The part of the weird cool things that have only one piece look kind of like things that are good to eat but might also kill you that grow on the ground. They are where the weird cool things that have only one piece make more of themselves. They are very very old but look just like pieces around today. The paper says maybe this is a sign that things stay the same for a very long time because the world around things makes it so, but it is important to remember that sometimes two things that are not close brothers and sisters can look very very much like close brothers and sisters. The tree paper finds very very old tree parts under ground and says that groups of trees a very very long time ago were even more like groups of trees today than maybe we thought. This would make the ground safer for things to live on. References: Stein, William E., et al. "Mid-Devonian Archaeopteris Roots Signal Revolutionary Change in Earliest Fossil Forests." Current Biology (2019). Rikkinen, Jouko, David A. Grimaldi, and Alexander R. Schmidt. "Morphological stasis in the first myxomycete from the Mesozoic, and the likely role of cryptobiosis." Scientific Reports 9.1 (2019): 1-8.

The gang returns back from their winter break to discuss two papers that look at the important information we can glean from soft-bodied organisms in the fossil record. First, we take a look at a paper that shows some incredible preservation of Cretaceous snails in amber and how we can use that exceptionally preserved material to infer important information about the evolutionary history of these groups. Second, we talk about a cool example where hypotheses pulled from trace fossils can inform the distribution of modern worm species. Meanwhile, Amanda was not content with being driven mad by just TWO cats, James somehow manages to complain about being good at things, Curt spills the secrets on his friends, the internet TOTALLY doesn't mess up our recording, SpaceX should probably paint their satellites, and we completely stay on topic this entire time….. believe me….. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition) The friends talk about two papers about things that have soft bodies. First, the friends talk about a paper where a soft animal who makes a hard home out of rock that it carries around with it was stuck in some stuff that comes off of trees. This stuff that comes off of trees made it so that things we usually do not see got saved in the rocks. This allows us to see all of these different soft things that don't show up in rocks. People used these bits of tree stuff with soft things in them to find out that some of the soft things we see today in these animals that make a home for themselves out of rock may have first showed up very very long ago. They use this to try to find out when these groups of animals may have first showed up. Next, our friends look at the changes in broken up bits of rock that form from soft and long animals live in the ground. As these animals move through the ground, they leave behind remains of where they were that can be seen in the broken up bits of rock they live in. These remains are usually very much the same when they are made by soft and long animals which live in very much the same way. One type of remain is usually found in places that are cold, but some people think they have found some of these remains in places that are usually pretty hot. This might be because there are ways that water moves which can cause areas that are usually very hot to have very cold water in them. That might make it just right for these soft and long animals which form these remains to live and be happy. To figure out if this is true, people went to a very warm place where in one side of the land the water was very cold and on the other side it was very warm. What they found was that the cold side had these remains, but the warm side did not. This means that these animals can live in warm places if the changes in the water allow for places with cold water. References: Hirano, Takahiro, et al. "Cretaceous amber fossils highlight the evolutionary history and morphological conservatism of land snails." Scientific reports 9.1 (2019): 1-16. Quiroz, Luis I., et al. "the search for an elusive worm in the tropics, the past as a key to the present, and reverse uniformitarianism." Scientific Reports 9.1 (2019): 1-8.

The gang discusses two papers on insect behavior, one fossil study and one modern study. The fossil study illustrates a cool example of how amber can help us to understand the evolution of pollination throughout Earth history. The modern paper investigates how bury beetles care for and communicate with their young. Meanwhile, James's computer lives in the past, Amanda has to deal with cat-nap related choices, Curt has his honor besmirched, and everyone is a little overwhelmed by how little people care about invertebrates. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about small things with six legs. Some of these small things with six legs go to green things with pretty colored bits and take their tiny baby parts, and take them to other green things with pretty colored bits. It might be that a long time ago, when green things with pretty colored bits were new, that small things with six legs and sort of hard parts over their flying parts were the ones that took the tiny baby parts of green things with pretty colored bits to other green things with pretty colored bits. The paper shows a small thing with six legs and sort of hard parts over their flying parts carrying tiny baby parts of green things on its body. That means that these small things with six legs and sort of hard parts over their flying parts helped these green things with pretty colored bits make more green things with pretty colored bits, but also that they ate the tiny baby parts. The other paper has different small things with six legs, and their babies. Their babies will ask the old small things with six legs for food. If they do not, they die. But if they ask too much, they also die, This paper takes away the old small things with six legs and shows babies will do nothing but ask for food and die. References: Bao, Tong, et al. "Pollination of Cretaceous flowers." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116.49 (2019): 24707-24711. Takata, Mamoru, et al. "A Parental Volatile Pheromone Triggers Offspring Begging in a Burying Beetle." iScience 19 (2019): 1260-1278.

The gang celebrates the end of the year by taking another break to play Fiasco, a crime/noir storytelling game by Bully Pit Games. Here is the conclusion of our two part episode. Business in the Blue Label Diner was picking up, and Bill Larsen was all action; balancing plates, refilling coffee, and distributing orders with a speed that belied his aging body. All the while, he never ceased telling his narrative of the town's recent history to the woman from out of town who was still sitting in that same seat at the counter. It was as though the act of relaying this history was somehow feeding him an otherworldly energy. "So I know that a lot people from outside uh' our town might not really get it… But ya see Mr. Cromwell brought somethin' important to this town. The Hub brought more than just jobs, it brought a purpose. It made this town important, put us on the map. And sure, we don't really go outside at night all that much anymore…" he looked out his window at the thick smoke which now pushed heavily against his diner like a layer of dense billowy cotton, "but my business has been doin' better than its ever done, and I don't think you'll find another person in town who'll tell ya any differently. Things…. things are good now in Paradise Falls." Bill picked up the carafe of coffee and made his way back to the woman sitting at the counter . As he poured her another cup, he glanced down at her notebook. It still sat on the counter, untouched; its blank white pages glaring back at him. For the better part of an hour she had sat silently, not writing down a thing; her face gradually contorting into a scowl of thinly repressed rage. That energetic confidence that had fueled him left him in an instance. His back once again twinged in pain. "Now I'm sorry but that's all I know about what Mr. Cromwell has been doin' around these parts. I think Sophie Bryant might have heard something about…." "I don't care what Cornelius Cromwell did or did not do Mr. Larsen." The woman tilted her head to look directly into his eyes with a piercing glaze, "What I want to know are the whereabouts of Miss Tully and her relationship to Agent Cooper." Bill looked perplexed, "Agent who now?" The woman stood up from her stool at the counter and stared him down. Bill crumpled, some of the coffee spilling out of the carafe which he still held clenched in his right hand. "Mr. Larsen, where is Miss Tully?" The diner went silent, all eyes turned to look at Bill and this strange woman from out of town. As Bill shrank away he sheepishly asked "Now… now which… which paper are ya workin' for?" "I'm not." The woman threw down a badge with the words 'Bounty Hunter' in large thick typeface onto the counter. "Now, what do you know about the whereabouts of Miss Theresa Tully?" "Paradise Falling" is a surreal tale of paranoia, failure, and cold hard capitalism. "Andreas Theme" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The gang celebrates the end of the year by taking another break to play Fiasco, a crime/noir storytelling game by Bully Pit Games. This campaign will be broken into two parts. The afternoon sun cast long, hazy blades of light across the linoleum floor of the Blue Label Diner in downtown Paradise Falls. Bill Larsen took a moment to stretch his aching back before hunching again to buff the counter with his cleaning rag. With weary eyes, he turned his attention back to the out-of-towner who was furtively sipping her coffee. She pulled out a notebook and pen from her jacket pocket and set them expectantly on the counter, waiting for Bill to speak. "Do ya want some apple pie? Best in town." No other restaurant in Paradise Falls sold apple pie, and Bill knew that. The woman shook her head, "Mr Larsen, I'm just here to learn the facts about what happened in your town. So please…. from the beginning…" "How did it all happen? Well that's a long story." He paused and gave a winking smirk "Ya sure ya don't need somethin' more to eat?" The woman tapped on her notebook. "Let's see, well to understand any of it ya have to go back to the beginning. Ya see, first came the storm. Terrible winds ripped through our poor town like the gates of hell just opened up. Thank God most of the town was spared. Well…. except for the Tully farm. Such a waste really. Beautiful property that farm, and been with the family for generations. Pity Miss Tully had to sell. But in the long run, sad as it is to say, and I do feel just awful sayin' it, but in the long run I think ya gonna see that sellin' that farm was the best thing that ever happened to this town." The door to the Blue Label Diner swung open as another patron entered. With him came billowing black smoke from the outside, some of the thick soot that was beginning to blanket the entire downtown; a new daily ritual for Paradise Falls. The sunlight through the windows began to wane as the world outside became consumed in an ever thickening dark cloud of chemicals. But inside the diner there was coffee and pie. "Paradise Falling" is a surreal tale of paranoia, failure, and cold hard capitalism. "Andreas Theme" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The gang discusses two papers that look at how the morphology of tetrapods (animals with four limbs and a backbone) has changed over time. One paper looks at how dinosaur jaws are related to diet preferences, and the other paper looks at how spines have changed as tetrapods diversified through time. Meanwhile, James talks Star Trek, Curt gives some consumer advice, and Amanda would rather not talk about cowboys. Up-Goer Five (James Edition): This week the group look at two papers that are looking at different ways that animals get more different. The first paper is looking at the mouths of big angry animals with no hair. The big angry animals with no hair that eat other animals and get big have the least different mouths from each other, but those that are small and eat other animals have very different mouths from one another, and those that eat living things that make their own food or both other animals and living things that make their own food have the most different mouths from one another. We see the same thing no matter how we decide how different mouths are. The other paper is looking at the line of hard bits in the back of animals that do have hair to see if they get more different over time and do different things along the same line of hard bits. We find out that the line of hard bits do get more different over time, and that the reason they get more different may be because the animals with hair start to breathe more air. References: Jones, Katrina E., Kenneth D. Angielczyk, and Stephanie E. Pierce. "Stepwise shifts underlie evolutionary trends in morphological complexity of the mammalian vertebral column." Nature communications 10 (2019). Schaeffer, Joep, et al. "Morphological disparity in theropod jaws: comparing discrete characters and geometric morphometrics." Palaeontology (2019).

The gang discusses two papers that look at changes in teeth through time. The first paper looks at the earliest example of heterodont teeth in tetrapods, and the second paper looks at how different mammal groups build sabre tooth morphologies. Meanwhile, James has unique ideas for building worker morale, Amanda accidentally makes a pie faux pas, and Curt is friend to gelfling. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about teeth. Wow, teeth is one of the ten hundred most used words. Cool. So some things have teeth that are all the same kind. Most of the very early things with four feet that go on long have teeth of all the same kind. But there is an early thing with four feet that goes on land that we have known about for a long time that was never really looked at too close and now we see that it has teeth that are big and round and teeth that are small and pointed. It was probably eating things that were very hard and needed to be broken up before it could eat them. What is cool is that there are lots of animals from the same place at the same time that also show this kind of eating thing, where they must have been eating things that were very hard like rock and had to be broken up before they could be eaten. Our friends also talk about animals with hair that had very very long pointed teeth in the front of the mouth. It turns out that these teeth grow in a very different way. Animals with hair only grow teeth two times, and the back teeth only grow in one time. Usually the back teeth grow in last. But these animals had their very very long pointed front teeth grow in last. And they grow in funny. They grow in along the inside of the old teeth, until they are as much as the old teeth, then the old teeth fall out. This might mean that these teeth show up in different animals with hair totally on their own over and over and over again many times, which is cool. References: Clack, Jennifer A., et al. "Acherontiscus caledoniae: the earliest heterodont and durophagous tetrapod." Royal Society open science 6.5 (2019): 182087. Wysocki, Matthew Aleksander. "Fossil evidence of evolutionary convergence in juvenile dental morphology and upper canine replacement in sabertooth carnivores." Ecology and Evolution (2019).

The gang discusses two papers that use large data sets to look at big picture patterns in evolution and ecology. Specifically, they look at one paper that explores brachiopod shell thickness in relationship to environmental preferences during the Late Ordovician mass extinction, and another paper that looks at the evolution of using the tail as a weapon in vertebrates. Meanwhile, James is eternally "young", Curt invents unique ecological roles for Stegosaurus, and Amanda enables the worst type of ASMR (for those who cannot handle food sounds in microphones, skip 47:57-48:54). Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about two papers that bring together a lot of facts about things to say something about how living things have changed over time. The first one looks at hard rock like things that take food out of the water. This paper looks at how thick the hard parts of these things were and it focuses on a time when these things went through a real bad time and a lot of them died. While the paper finds a lot of interesting things, one of the big things they find is that some of the animals that pull food out of the water all made really thicker hard parts than the other types of animals that pull food out of the water. These animals that made really thick hard parts were also the ones that were hurt when a real bad time happened. The second paper looks at animals that have a long part coming off their bottom. This paper looks at animals which use the long part on their bottom to hit things. There are lots of different ways animals with long parts coming off their bottom can use that long part to hit things, and this paper looks to see what parts need to be in place in order to have these animals be able to hit things. It turns out that there have been many times that life has found a way to hit things with a long part coming out of the bottom. References: Arbour, Victoria M., and Lindsay E. Zanno. "The evolution of tail weaponization in amniotes." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285.1871 (2018): 20172299. Balthasar, Uwe, et al. "Brachiopod shell thickness links environment and evolution." Palaeontology (2019).

The gang talks about two papers that look at potential examples of parasitism in the fossil record. One paper finds possible parasites attaching to ancient ostracods, and another paper details potential parasitic isopods on electric ray fossils. Meanwhile, James practices his spidey sense, Curt is suspicious that things are going too well, and Amanda's internet has amazing timing. Up-Goer Five (Amanda and James Edition): Today our friends talk about animals that eat other animals without killing them. First our friends talk about a paper that talks about an animal that has big teeth but no hard inside parts even though it is in a group that has hard inside parts and lives in the water. This animal has a number of smaller animals that have sort of hard outer parts, that may have been living on its skin by sticking its head inside its skin and living there. It is very hard to tell if this thing had its head in the animal with big teeth and no inside hard parts when it lived, or if it was just maybe eating the animal after it was dead. It is very hard to tell if things ate other things while they were still living or if they were there after it died. Our friends also talk little animals that have five arms that today live in animals without legs that breath water. The animals with five arms first became animals with five arms that ate other animals without killing before the animals without legs that breath water came to be, so we did not know what the animals with five arms used to eat. Now we know that they would eat animals with lots of legs and a hard head, and that they would eat the animals with lots of legs and a hard head from lots of places, not just inside like they eat the animals with no legs that breath water. References: Siveter, David J., et al. "A 425-million-year-old Silurian pentastomid parasitic on ostracods." Current Biology 25.12 (2015): 1632-1637. Robin, Ninon, et al. "Eocene isopods on electric rays: tracking ancient biological interactions from a complex fossil record." Palaeontology 62.2 (2019): 287-303.

The gang discusses two papers that look into early plant evolution and ecology. The first paper looks at some evidence from fossil spores to determine where the earliest vascular plants on land may have evolved. The second paper looks at a unique Devonian forest ecology from China. Meanwhile, James accidentally hoists himself, Amanda is more heard than she thinks, Curt fails as acting like everything's ok, and everyone has a good old time working around Amanda's computer deciding to die. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about old things that can make their own food from the sun. First, they talk about some of the oldest things that make their food from the sun which also have ways of moving water from the bottom of the thing to the top. Before this paper, it was thought that things which make their food and live on the land probably first started in the big piece of land that used to be made up of most of the other land pieces put together. With this paper, they found parts of these things which are used for making babies in the rocks of a different piece of land. This makes the people who wrote the paper think that, maybe, a lot of the changes in these early things on the land that make food may have actually happened in this other place. The second paper looks at some very early trees. These trees are not the same as trees today, because they are not quite doing the same thing as trees today. But these early trees still act a bit like trees today. This paper finds a very interesting type of group of trees which seems to be in a place close to the big blue wet thing. This group of trees has the trees way more close together than we have seen before. It is a lot earlier than when we usually see trees that are grouped very close together. This means that trees got very close together with a lot of trees in one area very early on. This means that the big groups of trees we see a bit later on had their start earlier than we had first thought. This group of trees is also very cool is that the way the trees are grouped together is very different from what we see today, and even in the past. The trees are all the same type of tree and there are big, not so big but not so small, and small trees all grouped together. This means that lots of trees grouped together could really pull down some clear things in the air that control how hot the air is. References: Wang, Deming, et al. "The Most Extensive Devonian Fossil Forest with Small Lycopsid Trees Bearing the Earliest Stigmarian Roots." Current Biology 29.16 (2019): 2604-2615. Rubinstein, Claudia V., and Vivi Vajda. "Baltica cradle of early land plants? Oldest record of trilete spores and diverse cryptospore assemblages; evidence from Ordovician successions of Sweden." GFF (2019): 1-10.

James, Brendan, Aly, Carlie, Anna, and Curt gather together at the 2019 Geological Society of America Meeting in Phoenix and discuss the various paleontology talks they saw at the event. Day 1 (Anna, James, Curt, Brendan): 0:00 - 1:05 Day 2 (James, Aly, Carlie, Brendan, Curt): 1:05 - 2:37 Day 3 (James, Anna, Curt): 2:37 - 3:54 Day 4 (James, Carlie, Brendan): 3:54 - 5:17

The gang discusses some very interesting papers about bird fossils in New Zealand. These papers describe how many different types of birds ended up on New Zealand throughout the Cenozoic, and each time they experienced significant increases in their size. Sadly, since this was a very straightforward topic, no one could quite manage to focus on anything. So meanwhile, Curt remembers childhood animations that no one cares about, James makes it "fun" for himself and no one else, Amanda drinks the unholy combination of bourbon and rye (brye?), and everything just kind of gets way too 2019 near the end (EDITOR'S NOTE: Apologies for the inconsistent audio on this episode. The wrong inputs were used for some of the audio due to some last minute changes, but this should not happen in the future). Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about things with no teeth that can fly that can't actually fly and live on land that has water all around it. One of these things with no teeth that can fly but can't actually fly does sort of fly, but under the water instead of in the air. The other is a very large thing with no teeth that can fly but can't fly that people will have as an animal in their house a lot of the time. These things with no teeth that can fly that people keep in their house yell a lot and can also learn to talk. The one our friends talk about is just a leg, but it was very large and probably as big as a small child. The whole animal was that big, not the leg. The other thing with no teeth that can fly but can't fly but does sort of fly under the water is very big and very old and maybe is one of the oldest ones of these things with no teeth that can't fly anymore. It seems like maybe this land with water all around it was a good place for these early things with no teeth that can fly but now can't fly but sort of fly under water, because there are many of them there at this time. And they are very old, some of the oldest ones, and very big, so maybe being big is an old thing that this group of animals does. References: Worthy, Trevor H., et al. "Evidence for a giant parrot from the Early Miocene of New Zealand." Biology letters 15.8 (2019): 20190467. Mayr, Gerald, et al. "Leg bones of a new penguin species from the Waipara Greensand add to the diversity of very large-sized Sphenisciformes in the Paleocene of New Zealand." Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology (2019): 1-18.

The gang discusses two very different papers that are sort of united together based upon the importance of taphonomy. First, they look at a paper about how the ways in which conodont elements are preserved can affect our understanding of their evolution. Second, they talk about the recent finding of exceptionally preserved therizinosaur dinosaur nesting sites. Meanwhile, Amanda finds herself dealing with a failing webcam, Curt enjoys burying the lede, and James is never wrong unless he wants to be. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about how the ways that things wear down can really change how we understand our past. First, they look at these things that are like teeth but are not and are part of this very old group of animals that are aunt or uncle to a lot of animals that have hard parts in their backs which live today. Some of these old animals that have not teeth have changes through time in their not teeth. The bottom of these not teeth appears to disappear in the animals we find which are closer to today. However, this paper finds new animals that show maybe the bottom of these teeth have not actually disappeared, but instead it turns out that this bottom part is very easy to break off. This is important because it means that the not teeth may still have some deep relationship to how actual teeth teeth form. Next, our friends look at the places where big angry animals would lay bag like things that hold babies, here after we will call them sit places. A big question has been if these big angry animals liked to find sit places close to each other or far away. It is hard to tell this in the past because we can't always be sure all of the sit places were used at the same time. This paper find a single red line that runs across all of the sit places, which allows the people who wrote the paper to say that all of the sit places were probably used at the same time. Also, the number of babies that didn't die is a lot like the number of babies that don't die in animals who also find sit places together today. So it looks like these big angry animals probably shared sit places. References: Tanaka, Kohei, et al. "Exceptional preservation of a Late Cretaceous dinosaur nesting site from Mongolia reveals colonial nesting behavior in a non-avian theropod." Geology(2019). Souquet, Louise, and Nicolas Goudemand. "Exceptional basal-body preservation in some Early Triassic conodont elements from Oman." Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (2019).

The gang takes some time to discuss two papers about agnostids, a strange group of trilobite-like arthropods whose evolutionary history has been the subject of considerable debate. First, we discuss a short paper summarizing the history of the agnostid debate, and then we discuss a brand new paper using new material and Bayesian phylogenetics to offer a fresh new hypothesis. Also, James channels frustration into fun, Amanda nearly has her house destroyed by cats, and Curt asks the Star Wars questions no one wanted answered. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about small animals that have no eyes that might be sisters of animals that live in the water that have three parts and big eyes, many legs, and can make themselves into a ball. The first paper talks about the small animals with no eyes and how hard it is to make one of these animals for people to look at. They talk about the past of the animal and where it lived, and who it might be close sisters to. They say that a very cool area where we find these animals lets us see the legs and that they are different, also that they have a different mouth, and that maybe they actually do have eyes but they are on the mouth? They are weird animals. The second paper also talks about these animals, but does not focus on making the animals for people to look at. It looks at these animals from a different very cool area and shows their legs are sort of like the legs of animals that live in the water that have three parts and big eyes, many legs, and can make themselves into a ball. The paper is different from others, though, because it says that these animals are really either part of or sister to animals that live in the water that have three parts and big eyes, many legs, and can make themselves into a ball. But that is the only part of the tree that really is strong, so maybe who knows still? Our cat friend is writing this and did not really know what was going on that day, and does not know much about these cool animals with maybe no eyes that might really be animals that live in the water that have three parts and big eyes, many legs, and can make themselves into a ball. References: Eriksson, Mats E., and Esben Horn. "Agnostus pisiformis—a half a billion-year old pea-shaped enigma." Earth-Science Reviews 173 (2017): 65-76. Moysiuk, J., and J-B. Caron. "Burgess Shale fossils shed light on the agnostid problem." Proceedings of the Royal Society B286.1894 (2019): 20182314.

The gang discusses two papers that look at the diets of past and present crocodylomorphs using patterns in teeth shape and enamel. It turns out, past relatives of crocodiles were likely a lot more experimental in the types of feeding strategies they implemented than we might expect. Meanwhile, Curt comes up with a great name for a Lamsdell lab bowling league, Amanda loves possums, and James has some very strong opinions about the "Cats" trailer. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at the teeth of these big angry animals that hide and eat a lot of animals. It turns out that lots of these big angry animals are sons and daughters of older big angry animals which may have ate other things besides animals. These two papers look at the teeth of the living big angry animals and the older big angry animals to see what we can learn about what they may have ate. The first paper looks at the hardest bits that cover the teeth. In living big angry animals, they find that the teeth furthest back in the mouth have more hard parts covering them than the teeth near the front. This makes sense, because these teeth in the back hold on to animals and so need to be more covered. What they also find is that these big angry animals have way less hard parts covering their teeth than other other animals which are warm, but who do not grow new teeth every time they lose one. The hard parts are the same as some other big angry animals from the past, though some of the big angry animals that might have ate more than just animals have the parts where their teeth are hard being different. The second paper looks at the ways the teeth look. There is a number that can be looked at which shows if the teeth are simple or if they are very different. Simple teeth usually means that the animal eats other animals. But the more different the teeth are, the more the animal may eat both animals and not animals, or just not eat animals at all. They use this number to study what past big angry animals would eat. What they find is that past big angry animals probably ate way more different things than we see today. While most big angry animals today eat only animals, it seems that not eating animals at all, or eating both animals and not animals, happened way more often in these past big angry animals. It means that maybe these big angry animals have been a lot more different in the past, and our living big angry animals are maybe more "weird" than we think. References: Sellers, K. C., A. B. Schmiegelow, and C. M. Holliday. "The significance of enamel thickness in the teeth of Alligator mississippiensis and its diversity among crocodyliforms." Journal of Zoology. Melstrom, Keegan M., and Randall B. Irmis. "Repeated Evolution of Herbivorous Crocodyliforms during the Age of Dinosaurs." Current Biology (2019).

[TRIGGER WARNER: Some dead baby jokes because we were in a very weird mental place, and also way too much rambling conversations about Star Wars] The gang celebrates their cross continental trip to the 2019 North American Paleontology Convention by immediately getting on microphone the next day to talk about fossil Pterosaur eggs and what they can tell us about Pterosaur reproductive strategies. As expected, this may not have gone well. Witness the horror as barely conscious minds try and keep on topic for more than about 5 minutes! Apologies to the authors of these quite nice papers. [Editor's note: The scientific discussion on this podcast "starts" around the 10 minute mark] Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about animals with skin arms. We are really talking about the baby animals with skin arms when they live in a small house with a hard outer part. One paper talks about the house of a baby animal with skin arms that is very round and good. You can see all the small bits of this house with a hard outer part. In fact, this house with a hard outer part is very much the same as some of the flying animals with no hair today. That might mean that these animals with skin arms were living like the flying animals with no hair that are around today. We already think they ate the same way, so now we think they might have lived and made their baby small houses in the same way too. The second paper is looking at baby animals with skin arms while they are still living in their house. Different parts of the inside hard pieces of these baby animals with skin arms get hard at different times as they get bigger, but they are still in their small house with a hard outer part, except that not all of the houses really have a hard outer part but that is a story for another time. Anyway some of the babies are still soft but some are very hard and that makes people think that maybe when these baby animals with skin arms come out of their small houses with either hard or soft outer parts they are able to leave the big home right away and go fly away. This is different than almost all living animals that fly and do not have hair except for one group which is big and strange and look kind of like the large big animals that fly (but these ones do not fly) that do not have hair and are good to eat and very stupid, but they do not are not part of that group. So these baby animals with skin arms are very different (maybe) than what is still living today. References: Unwin, David Michael, and D. Charles Deeming. "Prenatal development in pterosaurs and its implications for their postnatal locomotory ability." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 286.1904 (2019): 20190409. Grellet-Tinner, Gerald, et al. "The first pterosaur 3-D egg: Implications for Pterodaustro guinazui nesting strategies, an Albian filter feeder pterosaur from central Argentina." Geoscience Frontiers5.6 (2014): 759-765.

We all just got back from the 2019 North American Paleontological Conference at UC Riverside with an extra long (over 5 hours) episode. Join James, Carlie, Curt, and Brendan as they discuss the talks they saw each day of the conference. Time stamps for each day: Day 2 talks ~ 54 min.; Day 4 talks ~2 hr, 36 min; Day 5 talks ~3 hr, 49 min.

The gang have a "Shark Week" and discuss two papers about the ecology of modern tiger sharks. The first paper talks about a unique feeding strategy for some tiger sharks in which they can consume a fairly large amount of song birds. The second paper discusses how tiger shark populations are distributed around the islands of Hawaii, a place known for fairly high concentrations of tiger sharks. Meanwhile, James informs us of an important holiday, Curt imagines the ultimate battle of goose and shark, and Amanda decides to take charge of the podcast. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about two papers that look at how these big animals with teeth that move through the water live. The first paper looks at what these big animals in the water are eating. People have been catching these big animals in the water and seeing what is inside of them. During some times in the year, usually the fall, these big animals in the water somehow eat a whole hell of a lot of these very small animals that talk a lot and move through the air. Turns out that most of the big animals in the water eating these small animals from the air that talk a lot are young but not babies. This shows a very interesting case where food comes from the land into the water. Often, food moves from the water into the land but this is the other way around. The other paper looks at where these big animals live, focusing on a place where a lot of these big animals have had attacks with people. This paper showed that this one place seems to get a lot of these big animals because they like to make babies there. There is a lot of stuff this paper goes through, but the big important point is that this is a place where people play and move in water, and it is also important for these big animals, so this means that people and these big animals are going to come together at some point and the people should be told about this. Another cool thing is that the number of big animals in the area and the number of attacks are not the same, meaning that more of these big animals does not mean more attacks. It shows that making sure people know about these big animals is probably more important, and that scared attempts to kill these big animals do not make the problem better, and ends up very bad for the world. References: Meyer, Carl G., et al. "Habitat geography around Hawaii's oceanic islands influences tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) spatial behaviour and shark bite risk at ocean recreation sites." Scientific reports 8.1 (2018): 4945. Drymon, J. M., et al. "Tiger sharks eat songbirds: scavenging a windfall of nutrients from the sky." Ecology.

The gang talks about two papers that are interested in iterative evolution, the repeated evolution of the same or similar morphological characteristics within or among species. Specifically, they are focused on iterative evolution in species on islands. The first paper they discuss looks at how being flightless might have evolved multiple times on the same island within the same species of rails. The second paper looks at repeated changes in developmental timing associated with climatic changes on an island. Also, James is an expert, Curt comes up with the best new Blue Sky series for the USA network "Rails and Snails", and Amanda changes the podcast's format. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talks about two times that weird things happen when animals get on an piece of land that is surrounded on all sides by water. The first paper looks at small light flying things. When these flying things get onto a piece of land surrounded by water, they seem to stop flying. However, they find these remains of these light flying things on this one piece of land so they can see how the way these remains look change, because the way these remains look will tell us if these light flying things had decided to stop flying. The cool thing is that many different flying groups of this same flying thing landed on this pieces of land surrounded by water and all decided to stop flying on their own. So the story for these light flying things is that they land on this piece of land surrounded by water, they stop flying, and then they die from breathing water when the land goes under, and then when the land is above the water, they repeat. The second paper looks at how these things that sit there, have a rock around them, and pull food out of water change over time. What the paper finds is that these little things with a rock around them look very different when the water goes up and down. The paper says that this is because of changes in how these little animals with a rock around them grow up. Do they take longer to grow up, do they look more like grown ups or do they look more like babies? The changes they see in how these things grow up happen at the same time as changes in where the water is, as well as how hot or cold it is. References: Hume, Julian P., and David Martill. "Repeated evolution of flightlessness in Dryolimnas rails (Aves: Rallidae) after extinction and recolonization on Aldabra." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (2019). Hearty, Paul J., and Storrs L. Olson. "Environmental Stress and Iterative Paedomorphism in Shells of Poecilozonites (Gastropoda: Gastrodontidae) from Bermuda." Palaios 34.1 (2019): 32-42.

The gang discusses two papers that look at the extinction and survivorship patterns of clades across the Triassic mass extinction event. Specifically, they look at changes in morphospace in ray-finned fishes as well as phylogenetic patterns of extinction in early archosaurs. Interestingly enough, both studies suggest very low ecological selection (at least in the characteristics we can study in the fossil record), but the archosaur study shows clear phylogenetic clustering of extinction. Meanwhile, James works on his social media engagement, Amanda perfects the concept of a joke, and Curt discovers this podcast's theme far too late. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers which look at a time that was really bad when nearly anything died. But this time is slightly different from the other, more well known ones. Its not the biggest, and its not the one everyone thinks of. Instead, this bad time when everything dies happens just a little after the worst of the bad times where everything dies, and may have been important for the angry animals with no hair and large teeth. The friends talk about how two different types of animals that were changed by this really bad time. The first are things living in the water who can move through the water and have a flipper where their legs and arms should be. This first paper looks at how the form of these flipper animals changed before and after the bad time. What they found was that the form of these flipper animals didn't get changed by the both the really bad time, and the bad time very few people think about. They think this might mean that the bad time focused on hurting flipper animals that liked it to be warm or cold wet or dry. It also could be that these animals had a single job in their home. This is because form often changes when animals take on new jobs or move to a new home with different things the animals have to deal with. This might mean that these flipper animals just were not changed in any way but these big bad times of death. But the other paper looks at animals on land who are aunt and uncle to the big angry animals with no hair and large teeth. This paper did not look at the form of these aunts and uncles, but it did look at the sons and daughters and brothers and sisters that these animals had. It also looked at how these aunts and uncles of big angry animals lived; what was their job and how did they like it (warm, cold, wet, dry)? What the paper found was the bad time of death did not kill these aunts and uncles of big angry animals because of their jobs or how they liked to live. So this seems pretty much the same as the paper about the flipper animals. However, the paper also found that if a close brother or sister died during the bad time, their closest brothers and sisters were also going to die. This makes things hard to understand, because close brothers and sisters usually live in places that are almost or very much the same and/or have jobs that are almost or very much the same. The bad time seems to be killing close families, but not because of how they like to live or their job. This could mean that we are missing important things about how this animals liked to live which we just aren't looking for, or maybe we can't look for. It also makes us wonder if more animals might show something very much the same to these flipper animals and these aunts and uncles of big angry animals. References: Smithwick, Fiann M., and Thomas L. Stubbs. "Phanerozoic survivors: Actinopterygian evolution through the Permo‐Triassic and Triassic‐Jurassic mass extinction events." Evolution 72.2 (2018): 348-362. Allen, Bethany J., et al. "Archosauromorph extinction selectivity during the Triassic–Jurassic mass extinction." Palaeontology 62.2 (2019): 211-224.

The gang discusses a few papers that look at the evolutionary history, biogeography, and life habit of Mesozoic turtles. Specifically, they look at a paper about a stem turtle with interesting information about the evolutionary history of turtle morphology, a paper on a special fossil of a marine turtle with exceptionally preserved eggs, and a paper that investigates the biogeographic history of turtles. Basically, its a whole lotta turtles! Meanwhile, James resurrects some old arguments, Curt revisits cherished film scenes, and Amanda has a new obsession. Up-Goer Five (James Edition): The group look at two papers that are looking at animals with four legs and hard parts on the outside that they can hide in. These things are found on land with legs and in the water with water legs that they use for being not on land. This is a very long set of words, so we will call them hard boys. The first paper is looking at a hard boy that was full of little round things that would become babies. This is the second hard boy to be found with almost babies and can tell us whether hard boys had lots of babies or not a lot of babies. Hard boys that are in the water usually have a lot of babies that are not expected to live very long; this long dead hard boy actually had not many babies, so although it lived in the water it expected its babies to live. The second paper is looking at where hard boys lived in the past and how they got to be where they are today. The paper shows that hard boys started in one place that was very big and that they stayed on it as it broke up over time. As it broke up they also moved between the bits, so the hard boys were able to move between the bits even though they are usually slow. They keep doing this until the bits get too far from each other to let the hard boys move across. References: Li, Chun, et al. "A Triassic stem turtle with an edentulous beak." Nature560.7719 (2018): 476. Ferreira, Gabriel S., et al. "Phylogeny, biogeography and diversification patterns of side-necked turtles (Testudines: Pleurodira)." Royal Society open science 5.3 (2018): 171773. Cadena, Edwin‐Alberto, et al. "A gravid fossil turtle from the Early Cretaceous reveals a different egg development strategy to that of extant marine turtles." Palaeontology (2018).

The gang discusses two papers that look at how various animals associated with whales have reacted to environmental shifts over the last several hundred thousand years. The first paper looks at polar bears and reviews data on the potential utility of whale carcasses on polar bear survival during warmer periods in recent Earth history. The second paper investigates how changes in the shell chemistry of barnacles attached to whales may preserve important information on whale migratory patterns. Meanwhile, James has ideas about Final Fantasy and all Square Enix protagonists, Curt thinks James is the Kuja of the podcast, and Amanda finds her ideal Nobody name. Somehow we got on a real theme this episode. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends do not talk about very large big heavy things that had hair once. Instead our friends talk about small weird hard things that don't move that do not look like tiny things with many legs but are actually very close to tiny things with many legs. These things that do not look like tiny things with many legs but are actually very close to the tiny things with many legs are hard and live on the very large big heavy things that had hair once, but do not hurt them. They are friends, but the large big heavy things that had hair once don't actually care about the small weird hard things that don't move. But the small weird hard things that don't move can help us see if the big large heavy things that had hair once move around when it goes from warm to cold or not. It turns out that maybe even very old big large heavy things that had hair once might have moved around just like today's do. Our friends also talk about large white angry things with hair that want food that eat the large big heavy things that had hair once. These large white angry things with hair are in trouble because their home is going away. Their home has gone away in the past, and maybe they ate the big large heavy things that had hair once when they died and came on land. One big large heavy thing that had hair once can be food for lots and lots of large angry white things with hair. But people have killed a lot of the big large heavy things that had hair once, and that might be a problem. Maybe the big white angry things with hair won't be able to eat the large big heavy things that had hair once anymore, and they will all die. References: Taylor, Larry D., et al. "Isotopes from fossil coronulid barnacle shells record evidence of migration in multiple Pleistocene whale populations." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019): 201808759. Laidre, Kristin L., et al. "Historical and potential future importance of large whales as food for polar bears." Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 16.9 (2018): 515-524.

The gang finds two papers that discuss the ecology of fossil mustelids, the objectively best group of mammals. Both of these papers look at creative solutions to try and interpret past life habits for some very complex and debated fossil organisms. Meanwhile, James becomes passionate about food, Amanda wonders what sitcom the podcast must be, Curt discusses the true American Dream, and everyone is very sorry about how off track we get in this podcast. (Editor's Note: We sort of get to talking about the papers around 7:45) Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about cute long animals with hair that pretty much everyone of them loves. They find two papers that look at how some of the long animals from very very long again may have lived. They look at the hard parts of the head to see what these long animals could have eaten. Some of these long animal heads are really weird and have big raised edges on the top of the head. One of these papers look at using lot of numbers to try and figure out what one of these very old and weird looking long animals may have eaten. They find that there is a lot of things we need to look at and consider if we want to try and figure out what these very old animals ate. They find that its actually very hard to do, but that's a cool and good thing. We need to use lots of different numbers and study lots of different parts if we want to get a good understand of these very very old animals. References: Valenciano, Alberto, et al. "Megalictis, the bone-crushing giant mustelid (Carnivora, Mustelidae, Oligobuninae) from the Early Miocene of North America." PloS one 11.4 (2016): e0152430. Prybyla, Alixandra N., Zhijie Jack Tseng, and John J. Flynn. "Biomechanical simulations of Leptarctus primus (Leptarctinae, Carnivora), and new evidence for a badger-like feeding capability." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (2019): e1531290.

The gang discusses two papers about the Cretaceous mass extinction event (i.e. the time that the non-avian dinosaurs died). Specifically, they talk about the Deccan Traps, a widespread volcanic province that was active during the extinction event. The first paper studies the timing of the volcanic activity to determine if the onset of volcanism can be explained by the large bollide impact (Editors Note: Apologies to all igneous petrologists who will likely be yelling at our ignorance of hard rock geology). The second paper uses ecological niche modeling to see if dinosaurs were experiencing significant reduction in their geographic range before the extinction event. Also, James is in a "good" mood, so please enjoy as we bounce between topics like Sinclair oil, the French Revolution, "training" children, and experiences at paleo festivals. Its definitely one of those podcasts. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about the time when the big angry animals with no hair and large teeth all died. One of the ideas is that a very big rock hit and killed everything. Another idea is that rock that acts like water came out of the ground and changed the air and that killed everything by making things too warm or too cold. Many people are starting to think the rock that acts like water that came out of the ground killed the big angry animals with no hair and large teeth, because it seems like they died more slowly that maybe they should have if a big rock hit the ground and killed everything. That would be very fast. But then maybe the big rock that hit the ground really did kill everything, because it turns out that the rock that acts like water that came out of the ground maybe didn't happen at the same time that the big angry animals with no hair and large teeth died. It might also be that big angry animals with no hair and large teeth were maybe around in more places and maybe there were more big angry animals with no hair and large teeth than we think because we only have rocks in some places from some times and that makes it look like the big angry animals with no hair and large teeth died slowly, but maybe they actually died fast. References: Sprain, Courtney J., et al. "The eruptive tempo of Deccan volcanism in relation to the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary." Science 363.6429 (2019): 866-870. Chiarenza, Alfio Alessandro, et al. "Ecological niche modelling does not support climatically-driven dinosaur diversity decline before the Cretaceous/Paleogene mass extinction." Nature communications 10 (2019).

The gang celebrates their 6th anniversary by taking some time to talk about two papers about early mammal ecology. The first paper looks at some unique traces left by Mesozoic mammals, while the second paper attempts to determine how early mammals might have chewed their food. Meanwhile, James has made friends with his new Eevee named DMX, Amanda finds the fuel to sustain herself, and Curt imagines some tactical mammal stealth action. (EDITOR'S NOTE: If you're wondering if Curt went all the way into making a complete edit on that song near the end….. of course he did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-fs-Qx8W18 ) Up-Goer Five (James Edition): Today the group looks at two papers dealing with animals with warm blood and hair and looking at how they lived a long time ago. The first paper is looking at tracks of animals with hair that look a bit weird, with one side pushing down more than the other. The people studying the tracks think that they could have been made by an animal with hair carrying babies on it. This would be interesting as it would suggest that the animals with hair looked after their babies and let them drink warm white wet stuff from their bodies even this long ago. In order to see whether the tracks were made by an animal with hair that carried babies, the people writing the paper took an animal with hair that eats things people throw out but people also keep as animal friends and stuck things to it to make it carry them as if it was carrying babies to see if when it tried to walk it made tracks like they see in the rocks. It really just wanted to lie down but when it did walk it made tracks just like they see in the rock from a long time ago! The second paper is looking at how animals with hair that are around today eat their food and seeing how much it is the same or different to how animals with hair a long time ago ate. They show that they eat a way that we were not thinking they would and actually roll their mouth when biting, and that some of our strangest animals with hair that are part of an older group than most of our other animals with hair actually eat the same was as animals with hair from a very long time ago ate. References: Kuznetsov, Alexander N., and Aleksandra A. Panyutina. "First Paleoichnological Evidence for Baby–Riding in Early Mammals." Ameghiniana 55.6 (2018): 668-677. Bhullar, Bhart-Anjan S., et al. "Rolling of the jaw is essential for mammalian chewing and tribosphenic molar function." Nature (2019): 1. Pokemon and "Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee" are the properties of Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak ; "X Gonna Give It To Ya" by DMX owned by Def Jam and the Universal Music Group.

The gang discusses two papers about the interesting vertebrate remains in Myanmar amber, including a neonate snake and an Enantiornithean bird, and discuss the ecological and evolutionary implications of these fossils. Meanwhile, Curt starts a terrible "theory", James measures his hands, and Amanda might be responsible for some collusion. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about very thick stuff that sticks together and comes off of trees and often living things end up inside of it and dying. Most of the time, old tree stuff just has small animals who have their hard parts on the outside. This very old tree stuff is very is not like a lot of other old tree stuff because it also has a lot of big animals in it who have hard parts on the inside. Our friends talk about the animals that ended up inside this old tree stuff. One of the animals in the old tree stuff is a baby long animal without legs. This baby long animal with no legs gives us a look at a type of animal we often do not get to see in old rocks and lets us know that some of these old long animals without legs may have lived in trees. The other parts that ended up in this old tree stuff were from an animal who could fly. One of these animals who could fly ended up in the tree stuff, and all we have left are a foot and part of the arm like thing they use to fly. This animal that can fly shows is very different from the animals that can fly today that are brothers and sisters to it. The foot has things coming off of it that are weird. In both of these papers, we can see how this old tree stuff gives us very important facts about how animals that used to be in the world a long long time ago. References: Xing, Lida, et al. "A mid-Cretaceous embryonic-to-neonate snake in amber from Myanmar." Science advances 4.7 (2018): eaat5042. Xing, Lida, et al. "A fully feathered enantiornithine foot and wing fragment preserved in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber." Scientific reports 9.1 (2019): 927. "Hep Cats" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed by Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The gang discuss two papers that look at the links between morphology and ecology. Specifically, they discuss a fossil marine reptile with a very unique looking skull that gives clues to a possible "platypus" like life-habit. However, they also discuss a modern ecological study of crustacean-eating snakes which shows that sometimes unique behaviors can greatly expand the potential prey species available to a predator. Meanwhile, James regales us with tales of an epic battle, Amanda is good at social interactions, and Curt ponders anime betrayals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtMR7I38s1U > Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about animals with small heads and how these animals lived and ate. First, they talk about a thing that lived in the big blue wet place a long long time ago which had a very very large body. Before hand, we didn't know what the head of this thing looked like. But now we found out that it had a really really small head for its really big body. Also, the head is weird, and has these cuts in it that seem to be where a round long mouth thing used to be. Also, it has a strange hard part in the middle of the head which is not stuck to anything. All of these weird head bits are very much like what we see in one weird animal today which looks like it was made from parts of other animals. This has lead people to think that this old animal who lived in the big blue wet place might have eaten in a way that is a lot like this animal we have today that looks like it was made from parts of other animals. Next, our friends talk about these animals with no legs who eat rock hard animals with cutting hands who sometimes lose their skin. There are lots of types of these animals with no legs, but only a few of these animals with no legs try to eat these rock hard animals with cutting hands who sometimes lose their skin. This paper wanted to know how these animals with no legs go about eating these rock hard animals. It turns out there are many different ways to do it, with some of them pulling off legs, some of them eating the rock hard animals whole, and some of them waiting until these rock hard animals lose their skin. But the really cool thing is that animals with no legs who had very small mouths could actually eat rock hard animals much larger than themselves. By waiting until these rock hard animals lost their skin, these very small animals with no legs could tear their food to small pieces while it was still able to move and breathe. So the way that the animal with no legs lived was very important for deciding which of the rock hard animals it could eat. References: Cheng, Long, et al. "Early Triassic marine reptile representing the oldest record of unusually small eyes in reptiles indicating non-visual prey detection." Scientific reports 9.1 (2019): 152. Jayne, Bruce C., Harold K. Voris, and Peter KL Ng. "How big is too big? Using crustacean-eating snakes (Homalopsidae) to test how anatomy and behaviour affect prey size and feeding performance." Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 123.3 (2018): 636-650.

The gang discusses two papers that use fossil evidence to interpret physiology and functional morphology of extinct animals. First, we discuss a new study that suggests ichthyosaurs may have evolved blubber to help them regulate their temperatures. Second, we talk about a new study that uses robotic models to test how early tetrapods may have moved. Meanwhile, Amanda mixes caffeine and alcohol, Curt forgets Shane Black movies, and James tries to pull the ultimate mid episode twist. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about animals that are very big but not large, and how early animals with four feet walked. The first paper is very good and talks about an animal that looked like an animal that breathes water but actually is an animal that has just skin and breathes air. These animals had thick skin with lots of stuff under the skin like cute animals with hair that live where it's cold. This stuff is very very very easy to see in this old animal. It also has color. But real color not color that might not be real like in other old animals. One friend thinks that this animal might be very good to eat. Our friends also talk about a very good paper that looks at how early animals with four feet walked. This paper has a lot of people all working together and they do a lot of different things that they are all very good at, so this paper does some different things than other papers. They make a not-real animal, both in a computer and in real life. The computer not-real animal is used to make sure the real-life not-real animal can do things right. It looks like a lot of work. Then they make the real-life not-real animal walk and show that it looks like foot marks left a long time ago by early animals with four feet. They make the real-life not-real animal walk a number of different ways to make sure that they are doing the right thing. The real-life not-real animal leaves foot marks that match up just right with the foot marks left a long time ago. References: Nyakatura, John A., et al. "Reverse-engineering the locomotion of a stem amniote." Nature 565.7739 (2019): 351. Lindgren, Johan, et al. "Soft-tissue evidence for homeothermy and crypsis in a Jurassic ichthyosaur." Nature 564.7736 (2018): 359.

The gang gets together to record their first episode back from the holidays. And what better topic to discuss than hyoliths, those strange shelly Cambrian fossils. Specifically, the gang discusses two papers that look at new discoveries of the soft tissue and the hard shells of these hylothis to try and determine the evolutionary placement of hyoliths. Are hyoliths molluscs? Are hyoliths brachiopods? Are they somewhere in between? Meanwhile, Amanda hears some good news, Curt does his best hyolith impression, and James hits some unexpected snags when he discusses the ramifications of his ideal super powers. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about animals that are big at one end and small at another end. They might be close to things with two parts that are good to eat, or they might be close to things with two parts that are not good to eat. Some people have said not long ago that they are more close to the things with two parts that are not good to eat. Our friends look at two papers that talk about these strange animals that are big at one end and small at the other. One paper says that yes, these animals are more close to the things with two parts that are not good to eat, and says that this is shown by the fact that they have a long thing that makes them stick to the ground. Animals with two parts that are good to eat don't have this long thing that makes them stick to the ground, but animals that have two parts that don't aren't good to eat do. Our friends don't really know if this thing is actually a part that makes the strange animals that are big at one end and small at the other stick to the ground, and would like to see some cool pictures taken to help show more things. The second paper tells us that actually these strange things that are bigger at one end and smaller at another are sort of between the things with two parts that are good to eat and the things with two parts that are not good to eat. They do this by looking at the hard parts that make up the strange things that are big at one end and small at the other, and then looking at the hard parts of the animals with two parts (both good and not good to eat). They look at these hard parts very, very close up. It is very cool. References: Sun, Haijing, et al. "Hyoliths with pedicles illuminate the origin of the brachiopod body plan." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285.1887 (2018): 20181780. Li, Luoyang, et al. "Homologous shell microstructures in Cambrian hyoliths and molluscs." Palaeontology (2018).

At the end of a long year, the gang takes a moment to reflect on the various strategies they use to try and keep themselves sane when things get stressful. So please join us as we discuss the joys of knitting, painting, and unconventional youtube video series in this special self care episode of Palaeo After Dark. Honestly though, it's a lot of knitting. Here's to a safe and happy new year.

The gang looks over two older review papers that are interested in communities and trophic disruption. What is important in keeping communities together and how can stable systems become destabilized? They use these two review papers as a general jumping off point to talk about the difference between a species that is just non-native vs invasive, trophic collapse or cascades, and the importance of systems interactions in keeping communities at a stable equilibrium. Meanwhile, Amanda is always meeting new people, James wants a reboot, and Curt messes up the simplest part of his job. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends talk about the groups that form when many different animals and the green things they eat all live in the same place and share matter. These groups are always changing over time, but they can reach an even state for a short time. First, the friends talk about what happens when a new animal or green thing moves into the group. Most of the time, this is not a problem. However, sometimes one new type of animal or green thing can cause a lot of problems for the group. Usually, we see this happening when the group has gotten sick because people keep breaking the place where the group lives. We usually tell if a group is sick by the number of different animals and green things in it. The more different things in a group, the better off it usually is. However, sometimes a group that is not sick can still have one of these new types of animals or green things move in and cause problems. This is because the new thing moving in is helped by one of the animals or green things already living in the group. This means that people need to think bigger about which groups might end up having problems with new types of things, because groups that aren't sick may still have problems. People need to be better about not moving around animals and green things that don't usually live there. Second, the friends talk about the ways in which these groups can become even over time. It turns out that just a few animals in these groups usually keep the entire group even. If these animals are taken away or hurt, then the whole group suddenly changes to a very different group with far less different animals and green things in it. In other words, if just these very important animals are hurt, the whole group can get very sick. Usually, the animals that are most important at keeping the group even are the ones that eat the most. These animals are also the things that people kill because of food or clothes or fear. People need to not kill these things or everything will break down. References: Estes, James A., et al. "Trophic downgrading of planet Earth." science 333.6040 (2011): 301-306. Bulleri, Fabio, John F. Bruno, and Lisandro Benedetti-Cecchi. "Beyond competition: incorporating positive interactions between species to predict ecosystem invasibility." PLoS biology 6.6 (2008): e162.

The gang discusses two papers that use new findings to upend some of our previous interpretations of fossil taxa. First, they talk about the new biogeochemical studies that suggest the odd disc-shaped Ediacaran organism, Dickinsonia, might be the first animal in our fossil record. Second, they talk about some new fossil interpretations that challenge our understanding about the evolution of sauropods (the big, long necked dinosaurs). Also, James discusses posture, Curt buries the dinosaur lede, and Amanda finds out she has things to say… later. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends get together to talk about new things that have been found out about some very old things. First, they talk about this round thing that was around a very very very long time ago. This round thing was very funny looking, and a lot of people had different ideas about what this round thing could have been. But some people just did a study to try and found out what the round thing was made of. It turns out, the round thing is made up of matter with 4 bits in rings. These types of matter rings are only found today in all of the animals. So, they then said that this funny looking round thing was probably an animal. The friends next talk about these very large animals that had very long necks and lived a long time ago. These long necked animals were thought to have gotten really big after they started walking on all four of their feet and their legs became like trees. However, this study found that there were earlier long necked animals that were almost just as big, but were able to spend some time on two feet and their legs were still very much like legs. This means that these long necked animals got big and got small again over time without needing to get really thick tree legs that would make them have to only walk on four feet. References: Bobrovskiy, Ilya, et al. "Ancient steroids establish the Ediacaran fossil Dickinsonia as one of the earliest animals." Science 361.6408 (2018): 1246-1249. McPhee, Blair W., et al. "A giant dinosaur from the earliest Jurassic of South Africa and the transition to quadrupedality in early sauropodomorphs." Current Biology 28.19 (2018): 3143-3151.

The gang gets together to discuss two papers that are sort of… kind of… very loosely held together by… size? First, they discuss a paper looking at size biases in our current biodiversity crisis and comparing it to our past extinction events. Is the present the same as the past? Second, they discuss a paper that looks at the evolution of whales and asks whether there were long term evolutionary trade-offs associated with growing massive in size. Meanwhile, James slowly freezes to death, Amanda becomes "Memento", and Curt basically messes everything up. So, a typical podcast I suppose. HAPPY SESQUICENTENNIAL!!! Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Our friends look at two papers that try to see how being a big animal can maybe make it better or worse. The first paper asks whether or not being big is a bad thing for animals that live in the big blue wet thing. To do this, they looked at how many big animals who lived in the big blue wet thing died in the past during really really bad times, and then saw if that number was the same of different to the number of animals who live in the big blue wet thing today. It turns out that all the past really really bad times had about the same number of big things dying. However, today there are so many big animals dying in our big blue wet thing. This is probably because people like to eat these animals, and so they eat all the big things for food. So maybe what is happening today is maybe not quite the same as the really really bad times in the past. The second paper looks at some really big animals with warm blood that breath through a spot near the tops of their heads, and live in the big blue wet thing. These really big animals didn't always start out so big. A long long long time ago, the older mothers and fathers of these really big animals were not always so big. This paper shows how the mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers of these animals changed over time. It turns out that these animals started getting really big very late in time, and that it might have been because of some changes in the big blue wet thing where they live. Also, when some of these animals got really really big, the rest of their sisters and brothers died out. The paper says that maybe these things that get really really big might also now be very slow at making new types of these animals. References: Payne, Jonathan L., et al. "Ecological selectivity of the emerging mass extinction in the oceans." Science 353.6305 (2016): 1284-1286. Marx, Felix G., and R. Ewan Fordyce. "Baleen boom and bust: a synthesis of mysticete phylogeny, diversity and disparity." Royal Society Open Science 2.4 (2015): 140434.

Come and join us for an extra length episode where we discuss the talks we saw during the 2018 Geological Society of America Meeting at Indianapolis. Day 2 starts at 0:35:09, Day 3 starts at 2:04:36, and Day 4 starts at 3:28:07.

The gang discusses two papers that use the pelvis and spine material from pterosaur fossils to infer locomotion of these extinct flying archosaurs, Specifically, we talk about how muscle attachment structures as well as channels within the bones can be used to infer the mobility of ancient animals. Also, Amanda tries to resist talking about food, James makes boner jokes, and Curt ends up writing odd crossover fan-fiction. Up-Goer Five (James "Oh God I Need an Adult" Edition): The group look at two papers that are studying the dead animals that can fly but do not have anything covering their bodies. The first paper looks at how the part of the flying animal with nothing on their bodies that holds the legs and also where animals have to touch to make babies (here after: the fuck box) is different in different animals. The paper shows that the fuck box looks different in baby animals to grown animals, and that we need to recognize babies so that we don't make bad ideas about how these animals changed through time. They also show that the fuck boxes in the earliest of these animals look a little more like the fuck boxes of babies, but that they are very definitely actually over 18. They also show that there are at least two different types of fuck boxes in these animals, and this means that these animals would have walked in different ways to each other. The other paper looks at the fuck box and back of a small animal that could fly that is not covered in stuff and looks at the spaces in it to see how the bits that make the animal go looked like. The spaces for the bits that make the animal go show that it had big legs, and probably was good at walking, even though it was small and would not have needed to be good at walking. It has family that got very big though, and it seems that these big family friends would have been good at walking too. References: Hyder, Elaine S., Mark P. Witton, and David M. Martill. "Evolution of the pterosaur pelvis." Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 59.1 (2014): 109-124. Martin‐Silverstone, Elizabeth, Daniel Sykes, and Darren Naish. "Does postcranial palaeoneurology provide insight into pterosaur behaviour and lifestyle? New data from the azhdarchoid Vectidraco and the ornithocheirids Coloborhynchus and Anhanguera." Palaeontology(2018).

The gang returns to one of their favorite pet topics, food! This week, we discuss two papers that investigate what different animals are eating. Specifically, we focus on a paper that uses fossil data to infer the feeding strategies of extinct giant otters, and another paper that seeks to answer the question of whether or not modern bonnethead sharks are omnivorous. Also, Amanda finds her spirit anime character, James workshops new ideas for the podcast at the worst possible time, Curt leads us on a strange aside about bears and wolves, and we all work together to invent the perfect animal. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition) Our friends talk about what animals eat. First they talk about long four legged animals with hair who have high voices. Some of these long four legged animals from a long time ago were really really big. When we study the hard parts of these really big, long four legged animals, we find that they can break open other really hard things in order to eat them. When we look at the hard parts of living long, four legged animals with high voices, we find that these old big long four legged animals were probably able to break things in different ways than the living animals just because they were so very very big. This shows that long four legged animals in the past could fill different jobs in the world than the living, much smaller four legged animals. Second, the friends look at animals that spend all their time in the water and have lots of inside parts that do not break. These water animals are often thought to eat other animals only. However, these water animals have been shown to eat green things that make food from the sun. People did not know if these water animals meant to eat the green things that make food from the sun, or if they did not mean to. Some people took some of these water animals and had these water animals eat a lot of green things that make food from the sun. The water animals got bigger, and seemed to do well when they were made to eat only these green things. The people decided that this meant the water animals meant to eat the green things and that meant that not all water animals with inside parts that do not break eat only other animals. References: Tseng, Z. Jack, et al. "Feeding capability in the extinct giant Siamogale melilutra and comparative mandibular biomechanics of living Lutrinae." Scientific Reports 7.1 (2017): 15225. Leigh, Samantha C., Yannis P. Papastamatiou, and Donovan P. German. "Seagrass digestion by a notorious 'carnivore'." Proc. R. Soc. B 285.1886 (2018): 20181583.