Terrible Lizards

The end of the series is our favourite - we answer your questions! A massive thank you to our patrons who contributed the questions. Go to patreon.com/terriblelizardds for a bonus episode out next week. Do keep in touch #terriblelizards @iszi_lawrence @dave_hone Buy Dave's Book - How fast did T.Rex Run/The future of Dinosaurs. Look out for iszi's childrens books: Blackbeard's Treasure is out in January with Bloomsbury. RAWR!

Dinosaur jaws and feeding with Ali Nabavizadeh We started with theropod feeding but what about the herbivores? This week we're joined by Ali Nabavizadeh who specialises in the jaws and teeth of the ornithischian dinosaurs and how these work and how this plays into their feeding ecology. This gives Dave ample opportunity to ask vexing questions about their jaws and elicit the same response he gives whenever asked about T. rex being a scavenger, but it does mean that Ali talks about how the hadrosaur dental battery works, how similar they are to ceratopsians and whether or not these animals have cheeks. Links: Ali on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vert_Anatomist Ali's webpages: https://www.vet.upenn.edu/people/faculty-clinician-search/aliNabavizadeh Support Terrible Lizards on Patreon

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

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

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

British iguanodontids with Joe Bonsor We have touched on Iguanodon before as one of the earliest named dinosaurs and an animal with some interesting relatives and famously spiky thumbs but they never really got the attention that they should have done (from us at least). Enter Joe Bonsor who is finishing off his PhD on these very animals and trying to sort out the utter mess that is the taxonomy of the iguanodontians in the UK. We dive into this with some surprising conclusions and interesting news about what Joe has found (no spoilers, you'll have to listen) and we go through some of the earliest dinosaur history and give some well-deserved coverage of the great Gideon Mantell. Links: Joe on Twitter https://twitter.com/palaeojoe Joe's blogpost on his PhD https://palaeojoe.wordpress.com/2020/07/30/yes-but-what-do-you-actually-do/ To support the show please write a review, share this with your friends and join us on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Following up on the previous series where pterosaurs dominated, we had to sneak in a bit more of them here. Dave has always had an aversion to the toothy ornithocheirids as while so many of them turn up in 3D (unlike pretty much all other pterosaurs) they also have a horrific taxonomic history and they are a nightmare to deal with. Happily, Taissa Rodrigues is here to talk all about them and she has done more than anyone else to sort out these species and their relationships in recent years as well as working on their biology and that of other pterosaurs in her native Brazil. We also get onto the tricky subject of fossil laws, poaching, exports and differing rules and histories around the world and the damage it can do to research. Links: Taissa on Twitter https://twitter.com/paleotaissa A report on one of her recent papers on pterosaur pneumaticity https://paleontologia.ufes.br/en/conteudo/vertebral-air-cavities-large-pterosaurs-disclose-key-adaptations-flight To support the show please write a review, share this with your friends and join us on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Theropod jaw biomechanics with Manabu Sakamoto We are still going! We are back and like last series, we're taking a bit of a different tack to the previous ones and here we are having experts on every episode in a desperate attempt to make up for Dave's quite profound lack of knowledge in numerous areas of dinosaur biology. With that in mind, we start off with Manabu Sakamoto who works primarily on the biomechanics of theropods jaws – what they could and couldn't bite and how hard and what this means. This is obviously of huge importance for figuring out their general biology, behaviour and diet and so it's great to get some real insight into this area of their lives. Links: Manabu on Twitter https://twitter.com/drmambobob Manabu's online lecture on dinosaur evolution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9KFj5msp28 To support the show please write a review, share this with your friends and join us on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

The new series will start on the 12th of October! If you would like to support us and get our bonus episodes sooner - please consider becoming a patron on patreon.com/terriblelizards. Pterosaurs living during the Jurassic period were thought to have been relatively small, but a stunning new skeleton shows otherwise. Natalia Jagielska has helped describe the new find in Scotland which has changed our understanding of Flappy Flaps. Natalia Jagielska is a PhD in Palaeontology at University of Edinburgh Studying Jurassic Pterosaurs and a Illustrator Dino Consultant for @paleopines (Spoilers) The spectacularly preserved three-dimensional skeleton from the Middle Jurassic of Scotland, is a new genus and species: Dearc sgiathanach with a wingspan >2.5 m, and bone histology shows it was a juvenile-subadult still actively growing when it died, making it the largest known Jurassic pterosaur represented by a well-preserved skeleton.

If you could give the paleontology field NASA's budget what would you do with it? Ever used laser-stimulated fluorescence? How do pterosaurs sleep? Was was Irritator challengeri? When did birds wiggle their hips? How can you tell if species shared an environment? Is there any evidence for intra-specific fighting amongst Pterosaurs? PLUS MORE! We've gotten a plethora of questions this series - Dr David Hone tries to get through them all - with a little help from Iszi Lawrence. Thank you to our Patrons! Join them patreon.com/terriblelizards Dave's Book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09PTDQJG1/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 Iszi's other podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0c142b0 Iszi's new book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blackbeards-Treasure-Flashbacks-Iszi-Lawrence/dp/1801990964/ref=zg_bsnr_15512140031_3/260-4119745-8285309?pd_rd_i=1801990964&psc=1

How science works In another in the increasingly long line of topics we probably should have covered quite a few series ago, this week we are addressing some of the fundamentals of what science actually IS. How does it all work really, and what is the difference between a hypothesis and a theory, and how confident can we be about dinosaur research when so much is unknown and difficult to put to the test? All this and some other bits (that I can't really remember because we recorded this 2 months ago and I've not listened to the edit yet) are covered and hopefully it's a case of 'better late than never' in informing our listeners of the basis of scientific studies. Thank you for listening and do consider supporting us on patreon: patreon.com/terriblelizards Links: A short but simple definition of science by the UK Science Council: https://sciencecouncil.org/about-science/our-definition-of-science/

This is perhaps the question that gets asked the most and so it's time to address it properly (well, we are 7 seasons in, we were going to get to it sooner or later). So this week we are talking about routes into palaeontology and all that involves, from 'classic' academic roles as a researcher at a university or museum, though to science writers, fossil preparators, illustrators and photographers and all manner of other palaeontologically related jobs and careers. As well as all that, we'll talk about those people who are actively engaged in research and publications without holding jobs or having qualifications in the field as they exist too. So hopefully this will answer some burning questions for many and enlighten others as to how everyone comes together (to argue with each other) in this field. Links: Dave's original essay on this subject: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2018/07/04/how-do-i-become-a-palaeontologist/ And a follow up with suggested books to read to become a palaeontologist: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2020/04/14/books-to-read-to-become-a-palaeontologist/

Perhaps the best known, and most often misrepresented, pterosaur is Pteranodon. It has become the archetypal pterosaur and is always in the background of every Mesozoic scene (especially with T. rex) to let you know that the pterosaurs are out there. But aside from being quite big and having a funky headcrest (like all the best pterosaurs do) it's an animal that is constantly overlooked even though we have more than a thousand specimens of it to work from. That's an odd combination so it's time that Pteranodon got some love and we took a look at one of the best known and most studied pterosaurs. Links: Mark Witton's blog post about the taxonomic confusion and identities of Pteranodon specimens https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-pteranodon-complex-and-dismantling.html Dave's blog post about the untimely end to one with a shark's tooth in its neck. https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/pteranodon-vs-cretoxyrhina/

From the very biggest to the smallest, anurognathids were the little fuzz balls of pterosaurs that barely reached 1m wingspan as adults. They were bat-like hawkers, catching insects on the wing with their giant gapes and tiny teeth. Although rare, like the azhdarchids we have recently had a flurry of finds and accompanying research on them which means that they have gone from one of the least to one of the best understood pterosaurs in short order. Better yet, they include several specimens with incredible preservation of the wings and pycnofibers (?feathers?) so they tell us a lot about pterosaurs generally, even while being weird even by pterosaur standards. Do please support us on patreon Links: A blog post of Dave's about his recent review that summarised everything we (he) knew about anuroganthids. https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2020/10/15/revising-the-frog-mouthed-pterosaurs-the-anurognathids/ Another Dave post about the recently named Cascocauda and anurognathid growth https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2022/03/03/cascocauda-a-new-anurognathid-pterosaur/

If most people know one thing about pterosaurs (well one correct thing rather than them being flying dinosaurs or bird ancestors) it's that they got really big. At the top end they hit over 10 m in wingspan and probably over 250 kg, massively bigger than the largest flying birds (living or extinct). And all the real giants belonged to one group – the azhdarchids. These long-necked monsters were a real mystery for decades but a flurry of discoveries and research in recent years means we now have an excellent understanding of their ecology and weird proportions. Links: Dave's blog post about the Canadian azhdarchid he (fairly) recently named https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2019/09/10/welcome-cryodrakon-a-gaint-canadian-azhdarchid-pterosaur/ Darren Naish's blog about the recent big work finally describing Quetzalcoatlus https://tetzoo.com/blog/2021/12/8/the-quetz-monograph-lives

It's hopefully not a surprise at this point that pterosaurs were fully powered and capable fliers and that they were not passive gliders or could only get airbourne through jumping off of cliffs. While we do talk about flight here, it's not like that is all pterosaurs could do so we cover their abilities on the ground (and in trees) and take-off, and then whether or not they could dive, swim and how they floated in the water. It's a whole cornucopia of pterosaur locomotion through three states of matter (no known plasma locomotion yet) so listen in and enjoy. Please support the podcast on patreon Links: A section on Pterosaur.net about the abilities of pterosaurs on the ground. http://pterosaur.net/terrestrial_locomotion.php Another section of Pterosaur.net, but this time on flight http://pterosaur.net/flight.php An old article by Dave about his work on pterosaurs floating in water https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2013/dec/11/life-on-the-ocean-wave-wasnt-easy-for-pterosaurs

We've run out of dinosaurs (stega what now?) and so thanks to popular demand (well, Dave's demand) we're doing (almost) an entire series on pterosaurs! Everyone's favourite Mesozoic flying reptiles (well, Dave's favourite) are getting a series to spread their wings. We start with the namesake of the clade, Pterodactylus itself and something of the early history of pterosaur discoveries and research and the unusual interpretations that were floated for these incredibly strange (then and now) animals. Please do support us on patreon! patreon.com/terriblelizards Links: The original episode we did on pterosaurs. If you've not listened to it before (or recently) you might want to revisit that before the rest of this series. https://terriblelizards.libsyn.com/s03e02-ptserosaurs Pterosaur.net is a site Dave set up with a bunch of other pterosaur researchers (many of whom often get a mention on TL). It's a bit dated but there's a lot of good stuff on here. http://pterosaur.net/index.php An old blog post of Dave's including the 'flying possums' picture https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/early-pterosaur-reconstructions/

This is a bonus episode previously released to our patrons on Patreon. If you want to support us, and get more content please visit patreon.com/terriblelizards. Terrible Lizards is, at least in theory, there for dinosaur lovers of all ages and backgrounds, but podcasting is just one way to communicate with the public about dinosaurs and it's probably not the first one you would think of. Joining us this time out is Ashley Hall, a science communicator and outreach officer at the famous Museum of the Rockies and someone who specialises in talking to the public about their amazing dinosaur collection. So in the episode Dave and Iszi chat to Ashley about the challenges of talking about dinosaurs and palaeontology to different audiences and the influences of pop culture (i.e. we moan about Camp Cretaceous). Links: Ashley's Linktree to all her things: https://linktr.ee/Lady_Naturalist Facebook group on Paleontology Education: https://www.facebook.com/groups/877919522277386 twitter @LadyNaturalist Instagram: @Lady_Naturalist

The Questions episode! Untapped fossils, bad evolution, therapod bites, spaniel ears, courtship dances and MORE! Big thanks to everyone who sent in their questions. Martin, Glen, Mathew, Sam, Kim (https://kimralls.co.uk/), Gutza, Robbie, John, Marlon aaaand John. We will be back in the summer - please do support us on Patreon, where we will be adding some extra content. Also BUY DAVE'S BOOK - The Future of Dinosaurs or in the USA: How fast does a T-rex run? Aaaand it is available as an AUDIOBOOK on audible, so no excuse ;). And of course you should also check out Iszi's books which have extant dinosaurs in them... well, a chicken called Susan. iszi.com/books Do please keep in touch - we love to hear from everyone - @iszi_lawrence and @dave_hone on twitter.

The Future of Dinosaurs No guest this week as Dave manages to ramble on for an entire hour on his own again (well, Ok, Iszi helps him ramble). To be fair, he's got a new book out and since its 80 000 words of dinosaur ideas we thought we should cover it and it was never easily going to fit into 40 minutes. What's this amazing [citation needed] new book on? Well it's all about what we don't know about dinosaurs and the gaps in our knowledge – what we might work out soon (or at least one day in the future) and what things it might be impossible to work out and ever have any good ideas beyond some educated guesswork. This isn't just a plug for the book (honest) but really a discussion of some of the ideas and implications (but of course you can buy it too. Go on. Please?). Hopefully it's some nice ideas to think about and it is certainly unusual to talk about the info we don't have rather than what we do. Links: Well the obvious one here let's be honest is the link to buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Future-Dinosaurs-What-Dont-Never/dp/1473692245/

Alvarezsaurs From a micro dinosaur to the very smallest, this time out we're looking at the little alvarezsaurs which include the smallest of the non-avian dinosaurs and with several species that were the tiniest yet found in the Mesozoic. Dr Steve Cross joins us to analyse a popular work of dinosaur fiction. Dr Steve Cross is a an incredible consultant and STEM communicator. Find him, follow him, employ him. http://www.scienceshowoff.org/ Links: A blogpost about Linhenykus: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/linhenykus-the-very-model-of-modern-mongol-errr-alverasaur/ And one on the (possible) early alvarezsaur Haplocheirus by its describer, Jonah Choiniere: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/guest-post-haplocheirus-–-the-skilful-one/

Evolution In one way it's more than a bit late to only talk about evolution when we are 6 and a bit series into Terrible Lizards and this should arguably have been episode 1 in series 1 but here we are. Evolution is the foundation for modern biology and the understanding that species and lineages change over time and also how that happens allows us to interpret those changes patterns. While we barely mention dinosaurs this episode and while we also soon go off the rails and end up talking about some odd bits of evolution and even (shudder) genetics, the core concept of how evolution works is really worth going over as it's the framework for everything else we talk about. Hopefully this one will be illuminating. Links: An old post of Dave's trying to get the most comprehensive description of natural selection into the fewest words. It might well be worth reading as a primer for this episode: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/natural-selection-stripped-down/ And a short post about variation: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/variation-and-selection/

We've already mentioned Gigantoraptor this series so let's get down to the other end of the etymological scale and look at Microraptor. This little dromaeosaur was one of the first fully feathered dinosaurs to be found and is famous for its 'four wings' with long flight feathers on the legs and the arms. There's loads of good specimens of this animal so it is perhaps no surprise that there has been lots of research on it and, by extension, lots of arguments about its lifestyle, evolution and especially, how well it could fly. This week we are joined by Kobi Omenaka @kobestarr https://stripped.media/ who asks Dave about many dino appearances in film BUT crucially, what IS Godzilla? Links: A blogpost of Dave's on Microraptor feathers: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/heads-and-tails-microraptor-feathers/ And a much longer one about feather attachment and preservation: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/microraptor-in-uv-and-feather-attachment/

At various times in previous episodes we have talked about what various dinosaurs ate and bits of data about diet, but this time we're going to take a more systematic look at how palaeontologists work out the diet of ancient animals. We go through the obvious ones like sharp teeth and finding bits of stuff inside them to microscopic traces of damage on the enamel, the structure of teeth and elemental isotopes that linger for a hundred million years. All good clean fun (unless you are the dinosaur being shredded by a hungry carcharodontosaur). We don't have a guest this week - so there is no better time to find @Iszi_lawrence and @Dave_hone on social media (use #terriblelizards) and stalk us. Also don't forget to check out our Patreon many thanks! Links: An old blogpost by Dr John Whitlock on wear marks on teeth and how that can be used to work out the diet of sauropods: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/guest-post-grazing-giants-sauropod-feeding/ A post about Dave's paper describing a Velociraptor that ate (part of) a large pterosaur: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/velociraptor-scavenging-azhdarchid/

Back to dinosaurs so you can relax (though the pterosaurs will return next series). This time out, we are going with the oviraptorosaurs - and note the long name, it's not just oviraptors we are covering. As is common, the one famous member of this group tends to hog the limelight and not everyone knows about the others even if these days Gigantoraptor tends to sneak in in the background. These feathered theropods are rather bird like but thanks to them (probably) largely being herbivorous they tend to get overlooked with the more exciting dromaeosaurs taking the spotlight away from them, so it's time to try and redress that. This week we do have a guest and we are joined by comedian Eleanor Morton who asks Dave about Scottish Dinosaurs and their movements. Links: A couple of photos of a great caegnathid cast at the Carnegie museum: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/an-oviraptorosaur/ And a piece by Scott Persons on dinosaurs tails but featuring a superb oviraptorid skeleton: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/guest-post-raptor-tails-declassified/

Series 6? That can't be right. Surely this is 3 or 4 or something, 5 at the outside. Blimey. Anyway, we are back and we have new episodes though we are cheating already by starting with a pterosaur and talking about the greatly underappreciated Rhamphorhynchus. As the only vaguely well-known long-tailed pterosaur it is shown in the background of every Jurassic dinosaur painting to give scale the sauropods no matter how far inland or on the wrong continent or time it may be. It is though, as usual, much more interesting than people give it credit for and it's very well studied and well understood so it's a shame it doesn't get the attention it deserves. Dave likes it so much he went on about the growth, tail, beak, wings and more until we'd recorded enough that we didn't have a guest so just pterosaurs this week! Links: Blogpost about Dave's paper on growth in Rhamphorhynchus: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2020/07/08/how-to-grow-your-dragon-pterosaur-onotgeny/ Blogpost about decaying pterosaurs: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/soft-tissues-and-pterosaur-taphonomy-but-not-as-you-might-expect/ Link to the paper on Rhamphorhynchus stomach contents and coprolite: https://peerj.com/articles/1191/

A slightly silly intro to series 6 of Terrible Lizards, a podcast about dinosaurs which will be starting on Wednesday 9th of February 2022. (The guest on this clip is Dr Steve Cross).

We talk to Yara Haridy who has just completed her PhD on the histology of dinosaurs and other reptiles. On the podcast we normally just talk about whole bones and skeletons (or at least the bits of them that are preserved) but there is an enormous amount of information that is preserved in the fossilised cellular structures of these. Fossil bones are those that have turned to rock but that means that the original cellular structures are in there and these can reveal and whole host of information about the growth and physiology of ancient animals. Yara takes us through these and how we actually extract this information from bones that are hundreds of millions of years old. Links: Yara's websites with links to all her projects: https://ko-fi.com/yaraharidy and http://www.thebarebones.org

Are there dinosaurs on the moon? What are digs in Antarctica like? Dave Hone and iszi Lawrence answer your dinosaur Questions! At the end of each series Iszi and Dave trawl through all the comments and messages from our listeners. We answer questions from Elaine, Michelle, Lee, Hunter, Sabina, Phil, David, Leo & Quantum Robin (Kristjan), Russell, Shuyi, Steve, and Craig! If you want to hear us answer more questions you can also find us on YouTube and you can watch Dave roll his eyes at Iszi's brilliant ideas. https://www.youtube.com/c/iszitube Find more content on patreon.com/terriblelizards @iszi_lawrence @Dave_hone

With every big new paper or museum exhibition there will be artwork depicting dinosaurs as actual living animals, as well as all kinds of other representations of these animals be it pop-art or cartoons. Today we have a special with an extended chat to two artists who specialise in dinosaurs and make their living from producing images of these animals. They are Danielle Dufault who works for the Royal Ontario Museum and Natee Himmapaan who is an independent artist in London. We discuss the very concept of palaeoart and the roles of artists in communicating science to the public, as well as the explosion of interest and new artists in recent years. Dave's archive of interviews with palaeoartists: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/palaeoart-roundup/ Natee's old blog (with numerous images): https://himmapaan.wordpress.com Danielle's website: https://www.ddufault.com

Way back in the mists of time (last year) we did a whole podcast on Triceratops, one of the most famous dinosaurs of all. But is Triceratops not all it seems and is it in fact just part of a growth series which results in the largest and oldest animals becoming another dinosaur entirely in Torosaurus? The answer is no, but the reasons why this was proposed and why it's not the case are interesting in themselves and so we give over this episode to the ideas of changing dinosaurs and what we know about this. Then we get joined by Jay Foreman who asks… well lots but I don't know what questions Iszi edited in when I wrote this. Links: An old blogpost that covers some of the issues Dave and Iszi discuss well: https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/age-changes-you-torosaurus-actually-just-old-triceratops/ An article on 'Tiny' the Torosaurus: https://www.anythinklibraries.org/spark/tiny-torosaurus A link to Andy Farke's paper on Nedoceratops with some great photos of this weird specimen: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/cf50/7b4ce1751fdf11399bd7971f60da5857fda3.pdf https://www.jayforeman.co.uk/ www.patreon.com/terriblelizards @iszi_lawrence @dave_hone

We've covered one small, unadorned and under-rated herbivorous ornithischian already this series in Psittacosaurus and here's another one in the remarkable little heterodonotosaurs. Another set of animals for which we have some superb skeletons and lots of interesting features that are potentially very revealing about the evolution of dinosaurs in general (and ornithischians in particular) and yet they get very little love. As usual all the attention goes to the biggest dinosaurs, the carnivores and the showiest ones with big crests, but we here at Terrible Lizards want to stand up for the little fun dinos too, so here's a whole show on them. Plus we get joined by comedian and artist Bec Hill who has a question about sauropod feet with a twist. Links: A shot blog post from Dave with some photos of the little filamented Tianyulong: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/tiayulong/ And a much longer post with one tiny photo about the implications of filaments (feathers?) in these animals (though it's quite old now): https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/blah-blah-feathered-ornithischians-yawn/ http://www.bechillcomedian.com/ @bechillcomedian Bec's dinosaur song with Jay Foreman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ydJU-bVXaA

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

We have talked before about how large some of the giant sauropods were and how being big can really affect your biology, but just how do palaeontologists weight dinosaurs from incomplete skeletons and how accurate will these methods be? Well happily we have a podcast that will tackle those very questions and delve into the history and mystery of working out how heavy dinosaurs were, how we used to get it very wrong and why even now we are not that right. Joining us as a guest this time is F1 podcaster Spanners who, it turns out, is a huge dinosaur enthusiast. He wants to ask a rather different question about dinosaur domestication than you might first expect. Links: Spanner's podcast: missedapexpodcast.com @SpannersReady An old Guardian piece by Dave (for which we should point out, he didn't write the headline) on the biggest dinosaurs: https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2014/may/19/have-we-reached-peak-dinosaur An old blog post by Dave on the problems of data gaps when making size estimates: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/estimating-dinosaur-sizes/#more-4 Plus Richard Ready - Spanners from the Missed Apex Podcast on what would happen if more dinosaurs survived the KT extinction www.patreon.com/terriblelizards @iszi_lawrence @dave_hone

It's time to give some love to some dinosaurs that don't get enough and pretty much top of that list needs to be Psittacosaurus. This (mostly) little dinosaur is one of the earlier ceratopsains but lacking the size, horns and frills of their more notable cousins, it's sadly all too easy to see why they get ignored. But that's a shame because as well as having some neat little features of their own (like giant cheek spikes), these animals are among the most common of any dinosaur. We have hundreds and hundreds of specimens in museums and in addition to innumerable skeletons, there are also a couple of superbly preserved ones with skin and other features intact so they are well worth some attention. Later in the episode we are joined by Sabrina and Garret from the 'I Know Dino' podcast (who are obviously our arch rivals) who have a question for Dave about some obscure South America theropods. And if you want more on that front, check out their recent episodes as guess who they have had on as guests recently? Links: A link to the I Know Dino website and podcast: https://iknowdino.com Lots of close-up photos of the brilliantly preserved specimen with skin and filaments: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/the-filamented-psittacosaurus/ Some photos of the rather more common Psittacosaurus in museums, innumerable skeletons, many of which are composites of several individuals: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/the-rise-and-rise-of-psittacosaurus/ www.patreon.com/terriblelizards @iszi_lawrence @dave_hone facebook.com/terrriblelizardspodcast

Riparovenator and Ceratosuchops – Chris Barker and Darren Naish Just like the start of series 3, we are kicking off the new series with a special on a new research paper (of which Dave is one of the authors) which is out today! In it, two new, large, predatory dinosaurs from the UK are named and both are part of the spinosaur group! Obviously it's all very exciting, but to avoid things being too Dave-centric we have invited on two other palaeontologists from the paper, Chris Barker and Darren Naish. As a perfect example of the research process and scholarly work they present lots of ideas and information for Iszi to pick through while also cutting each other off and disagreeing over things too. But still, it should be a great insight into these new animals and the research that has been done on them. Links: Here's the new paper itself: www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97870-8 A link to Dave's blog post discussing the new paper: https://wordpress.com/post/archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/8762 A link to Darren's blog on the paper: http://tetzoo.com/blog/2021/9/27/two-new-spinosaurid-dinosaurs-from-the-english-cretaceous?fbclid=IwAR3wnW2BPbDu22aH4r0qXPt77nZtZEeBJoTI1i940aTdOcKRLC5jlG574h8 A link to Andrea Caursquo's blog (another author on the paper) about it: https://theropoda.blogspot.com/2021/09/lorigine-degli-spinosauridi-e-lascesa.html www.patreon.com/terriblelizards @iszi_lawrence @dave_hone facebook.com/terrriblelizardspodcast

Series 5 trailer with Dave Hone, Iszi Lawrence, Jay Foreman, Darren Naish, Suzy Buttress, I know dino, Bec Hill and Spanners! Series 5 starts on 29th September 2021. Links: www.patreon.com/terriblelizards @iszi_lawrence @dave_hone facebook.com/terrriblelizardspodcast

An interview about Marine Reptiles with Keirsten Formso @formophology. To get more free bonus content FIRST become a Terrible Lizards Patron on patreon.com/terriblelizards In the third series of Terrible Lizards we finally edged away from dinosaurs to cover pterosaurs, but in the Mesozoic, there were far more reptiles in the sea than in the air so we really need to do them too. Happily to this end we can welcome Kiersten Formoso from the University of Southern California who is working on her PhD about the transition back to the water by various reptiles from the time of the dinosaurs. Over the course of this bonus episode we look at the rise and fall of various different groups that took to the water and the evolutionary changes that occurred to them as they adapted to a watery way of life. So sit back and enjoy an hour of live bearing giant dolphin-mimics and all kinds of others. Links: Kiersten's webpage with links to all her projects: https://www.formorphology.com Photos taken at the Carnegie Museum of some of the groups discussed in the pod: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/western-interior-seaway/

It is the final episode this series and as usual we are answering some of your dinosaur questions (as many as we could cram into an hour). A massive thank you to all our patrons on patreon - your support means everything to us. We are planning a series 5! We will be back in the Autumn. There will be a few mid season episodes dropped here and even more content on our patreon. Got to patreon.com/terriblelizards Questions in were asked by: Chris (from Germany), Gildas (age 8), Edward (age 37), João Barbosa, Stephen Gatehouse, Gareth, Sarah Graham, and Melissa! We do often do live Q&As which you can find on iszitube

Dave Hone tells Iszi Lawrence about the early days of paleontology and the very first dinosaur discoveries in the UK. We cover the perpetually unlucky Gideon Mantell and the not especially nice Richard Owen (and Mary Anning pops up though she didn't really do dinosaurs). Dr Kiki Sandford then joins us and asks what clues there are in fossils to tell us how dinosaurs behave... and things get silly. A link to an old blogpost of Dave's including photos of the original Megalosaurus jaw at Oxford https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/more-of-megalosaurus/ Another old blogpost but with photos of the famous Crystal Palace dinosaurs. https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/crystal-palace-dinosaurs/

Following on from our last adventure into the realm of the very biggest dinosaurs, we now have a look at the other side of this issue which is that big dinosaurs started off very small. How do you get from a 5 kg hatchling to a 50 ton monster and what does that mean for how they lived and how palaeontologists identify adults and juveniles? Are there hundreds of 'new' dinosaur species that are just misidentified babies and can we tell? Then we are joined by out guest, comedian Alasdair Beckett-King who wants to ask perhaps the most pertinent question we've ever had, namely: What would be the best dinosaur to ride? Links: A couple of photos showing different dinosaur egg shapes from the near spherical to the greatly elongated https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/dinosaur-egg-musings/ A blogpost by Dave about his paper on telling adults from baby dinosaurs https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/what-is-an-adult-dinosaur/ A blogpost by Dr Matt Wedel on the same issue but with a particular focus on the complications of growth in giant sauropods https://svpow.com/2016/02/18/dinosaur-life-histories-are-plicomcated/ Alasdair Becket King hosts Loremen Podcast and makes exceptionally funny youtube videos: http://www.abeckettking.com/

Perhaps the single most notable feature of dinosaurs is the quite extraordinary sizes that many of them achieved. We have talked before about some of the issues surrounding being big, but before now we have not tackled the most obvious question in all of this: what is the biggest dinosaur? Well as you may expect by now this isn't a simple question to answer and between fragmentary fossil remains, uncertain scaling and growth issues there is no easy answer, but we'll at least try. We are joined this time out by comedian Laura Lexx who has a question about dinosaur families (eventually, there's yet more taxonomy talk first). Links: An old Guardian article by Dave about they then announced largest dinosaur ever : https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2014/may/19/have-we-reached-peak-dinosaur The first of a series of articles on the great SV-POW blog about various giants in North America and the problems of working out how big they are: https://svpow.com/2019/06/13/supersaurus-ultrasaurus-and-dystylosaurus-in-2019-part-1-what-we-know-now/ Laura has a podcast called treasures pod lauralexx.co.uk

This time out it is a group of dinosaurs very few people will have heard of or know very much about but they are a fascinating group of small, feathered theropods who have only been on the scene for around 20 years making them very much newcomers. The tongue-twistedly-named scansoriopterygidae are a bunch of fragmentary and bizarre animals from China and include some of the strangest dinosaurs known and absolutely deserve more attention. Moving on, our guest this week is biologist and author Dr Dani Rabaiotti and if you know anything about her work you may not be surprised to know she wants to ask about the gaseous emissions of dinosaurs. You know which end. Links: An old guest post on Dave's blog about the lovely little Epidexipteryx: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/guest-post-the-vampire-peacock-of-daohugou/ Dave's report for The Guardian on the discovery of Yi qi: https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2015/apr/29/bird-yi-qi-the-dinosaur-evolution-flight-feather-nature Do please support us on Patreon

Just how reliable are research papers and what goes on to get them published and accepted in the scientific literature and, critically, are they reliable? We have talked many times on the pod about scientific papers but without ever discussing what these actually are and how they get published. It's an important aspect of science and especially with palaeontology given the huge mix of information available through museums, the media, and well, podcasts, so it's an area really worth discussing. This week our guest is biologist and science communicator Simon Watt, who talks about the appearances of dinosaurs and the public's changing perception of this in relation to what the palaeontologists think. Links: A (very old) blogpost of Dave's on the same general subject of how to write and get a scientific paper published: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/how-to-write-a-paper-and-get-it-published/ A piece by Dave on the problems of peer review and reporting of non-reviewed material: https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2012/dec/01/dinosaurs-fossils A link to Darren Naish's piece on his All yesterday's book that gets a brief mention: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/all-yesterdays-book-and-launch-event/ Do please support us on Patreon

There's numerous illustrations and documentaries showing great herds of dinosaurs together and it is very common to come across the idea that various species (or entire groups like the hadrosaurs, ceratopsians and dromaeosaurs) fundamentally lived in groups. As usual though, this really oversimplifies a huge mess of extrapolations from limited fossil data and the complexities of social behaviour in living species. The perfect problem to solve in half an hour of a podcast. This time out we are joined by podcaster and science communicator George Hrab and general all-round science enthusiast. He wants to ask Dave a very speculative question about the future of dinosaur evolution and things spiral from there. Do please support us on Patreon and give us a follow @iszi_lawrence and @dave_hone Links: A piece by Dave in The Guardian about his work on groups in Protoceratops: https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2014/nov/26/dinosaurs-formed-groups-throughout-their-lives-protoceratops A blogpost on one of the older versions of Darren Naish's Tetrapod Zoology blog that covers some of the same areas as George's question: http://darrennaish.blogspot.com/2006/11/dinosauroids-revisited.html

Harking back to Series 1 episode 1 (a whole year ago!) we return to the tyrannosaurs, but having devoted a whole hour to T. rex then it seemed appropriate that we should try and cover the other 30ish tyrannosaur species at some point. Rexy might be the first and foremost of all dinosaurs but has dozens of relatives that are plenty interesting too and help chart the 100 million year rise of this group from small, long armed, and little headed predators to the giant monster that people are most familiar with. Joining us for the new series if comedian Sooz Kempner @soozuk who wants to know why Tyrannosaurus gets all the love when animals like Allosaurus are every bit as interesting. Support us on patreon! Links: A link to one of Dave's old blog posts discussing the issue of tyrannosaur names: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/tyrannosaurus-is-a-tyrannosaur-but-not-all-tyrannosaurs-are-tyrannosaurus/ A the first of a set of Dave's blog posts about his tyrannosaur Zhuchengtyrannus: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/zhuchengtyrannus-is-here/

Series 4 will be starting on Wednesday June 2nd. You can also catch us going live on our 1 year anniversary at 8PM GMT on Iszitube on youtube and our facebook page (facebook.com/terriblelizardspodcast) and on Twitter. Thank you to our patrons on Patreon who made this possible. Please go to patreon.com/terriblelizards

Many groups of Mesozoic plants are still around today so the landscapes in which the dinosaurs lived would have looked at least vaguely familiar to anyone who might be (un)lucky enough to travel back in time 150 million years. Still, plants are typically rather squishier than dinosaur bones and so their fossils are often rare. In this episode we welcome Dr Susannah Lydon to the pod to tackle the subject of plants at the time of the dinosaurs. Susie is an expert in fossil plants from the Mesozoic and so is a perfect guest to fill in the frankly colossal gap in Dave's knowledge of plant life from this Era. Although we have talked about dinosaur diets and feeding strategies before, we really haven't looked at the plants themselves in any detail. So this time out we'll be talking ferns, horsetails, mosses, ginkoes and the origins of flowers and with very little on dinosaurs, but all of it relevant to understanding how these animals lived and evolved. Once again there was a slight glitch with Dave's sound about 45 mins in so if he sounds weirder than usual that is why. Iszi has done her best to edit around it. ALSO: we do mention public lice but do not mention what they are exactly. So, if kids listen, you may get an awkward question. We do NOT explain how they are spread or anything other than they are lice and are endangered. You can find Susie on Twitter: @susieoftraken and she has a range of posts available on her old blog here (https://susieoftraken.wordpress.com) and from her stint as on the Guardian's science bloggers here (https://www.theguardian.com/profile/susannah-lydon).

How stiff were dinosaur tails? If you could find a complete skeleton of any dinosaur species, which would it be? Why are were dinosaurs so big if big sizes are evolutionary dead ends? It is the final episode of our third series and we put together just a few of the questions sent in from our Patreons and listeners. We plan on doing a live show answering more of your questions which you can watch on iszitube. We will let you know exact timings on Patreon and on Facebook. Big thank you to ALL our listeners and in particular our patrons who motivate us to keep going. In particular these wonderful people who inspired us with their questions. Glenn, Matt Potter, David Bax, Kath Bremer, Eleanor, James Psacoe, Konstantin Rybakov, David Lowe, João Barbosa, Howard Wiseman, Stephen Gatehouse and Gutza 1. Keep an ear to the ground for bonus episodes and you can hear these first, by signing up to Patreon. - as well as get extended interviews.

Following on from last week's look at how dinosaurs get named, in this (Patreon picked) episode Iszi and Dave turn to the issue of dinosaur relationships. How do palaeontologists put together family trees and work out which species or group is related to which other one? And how easy and reliable is it when most dinosaurs are known from only fragments of skeletons rather than complete fossils? For our final normal episode of series 3 (have we really come this far already?) we are joined by Professor Sophie Scott who has a question about the sounds dinosaurs might have made. Links: Prof Sophie Scott CBE is Director of UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. RI Xmas Lecturer 2017 - listen to her podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-neuromantics/id1455641494 Here's a link to a discussion between researchers about the vexed idea of the Ornithoscleida https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/a-discussion-not-a-war-two-opposing-experts-talk-dinosaur-family-trees And here's a link to an article about dinosaur origins and the question over the origins of the ornithischians https://news.mit.edu/2020/study-timing-dinosaurs-evolution-0729