Weird & Dead

This episode is a little different than our normal content. There are several paleontologists mentioned in the latest release of the Epstein files, and the official response to that has been... underwhelming. In this episode we tell you about the facts within the files, the paleo people identified, some important context, and the reasons that events like this concern us and negatively affect paleontology as a field.CW: sexual assault, sexual harassment, Epstein's convictions for sexual assault of a minor, PTSD symptoms, eugenics

At least one soft-shelled turtle pees mostly out of its mouth. This Patreon exclusive episode takes you down winding pathway from throat stalactites to shark dissection to vegan gardening practices (it's related, we promise). Images and a whole season of full-length exclusive episodes are on Patreon! CW: Urine, dissection of sharks, experimentation on turtles , teasing of vegans, pre-eclampsia and birth, turtles just being generally bad

Happy holidays! Here’s a bonus episode we’re releasing to the public as a holiday gift for you, all about Amy’s favorite: Lemurs! And specifically, how they used to be enormous and maybe interested in crushing birds. Art (and a whole season worth of exclusive episodes) is available on our Patreon.CW: Cursing, discussion of the crushing of said bird, the general concept of Aye-Ayes.

From carnivorous armadillos to the serial stabbing experiments of a self-described 70 kg male with no special training in any sporting discipline but who seems to have a very vicious cat, this episode is a wild, wild ride. But would you truly expect any different from xenarthrans?CW: Cursing, drug testing, the vegan police, a man stabbing meat and facing off against cats, sloth baby murder

Evolution continues to be disgusting as we dive into the multipurpose functionality of Aye Aye and Striped Possum fingers. CW: Boogers, Aye Ayes just generally, cursing, and somehow puppy play (you know, the kink that Google apparently thinks Meaghan has)

Sometimes evolution isn’t just weird, it’s weirdly indecisive. Let’s talk about the multipurpose mishaps that led to Iguanodon’s hoof-knife-tentacle combo and the extending butterknife palms of Pandas. Now with fixed audio featuring also Amy!CW: jokes about dildos, sex acts, and rude hand gestures. Cursing. Discussion and mockery of Meaghan’s current ganglion cyst. We do call extra fingers weird or freaky, but this is specific to animals and does not cover polydactyly or humans.

There is a worm that has fins and an Elizabethan collar of venomous fangs. It looks like someone glued false lashes to a tiny translucent manatee, and it might be the reason that clams are starting to kill people. Let's talk about arrow worms!CW: Swearing. Jokes about penises. Impacts of modern climate change.

Some birds (and thus, dinosaurs) make milk in a special part of their throat called the crop. Let's talk crop milk, crop cheese, shrimp smoothies, and why pterosaurs were pink.CW: a befowling of milk and cheese as concepts. Gagging noises. Eating of roadkill (theoretical). Swearing.

Or rather, unusually interesting size. To some. Let's talk giant beavers and the biggest rodent of all time, Josephoartigasia.CW: Body shaming of big rodents (not us!), cursing, statistics.

From crazy three-legged millipede fossils to the sexy club hands of spiders, this episode is all about where arthropods put their genitals. Specifically, their chins and feet. Videos and images are on our website weirdanddead.com!CW: Spiders and other arthropods. Cursing. Sex acts only a millipede could dream up.

Dinosaurs and horses and Amy loudly shouting out radioactive elements to antagonize her husband, oh my! This episode covers the perils lurking behind locked and poorly ventilated cabin doors - specifically, radioactive bones.CW: Cursing, cancer and theoretical nastiness caused by radioactive poisoning, Chernobyl, Meaghan's stuffed up nose

Ankylosaurs, ichthyosaurs and nonexistent narcissistic krakens! Let's talk about why Ankylosaurs are found upside down, and what really happened at Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park. Time to bloat up & float along.CW: Cursing, Pseudoscience, Dead Animals & Decay

Time to discuss yet another body secretion that you probably didn't think could fossilize. Urine marks, urine that became rocks, and rocks that formed in urine - we've got it all, baby! CW: Body fluids, cursing, turtles doing horrible physiological things, animal death

Thanks for an excellent first year! Here’s a bonus episode where Amy demonstrates she’s learned more about Chameleons since we started (kinda). Images are on weirdanddead.com CW: Cursing

Meaghan loses her mind about how gross rugose corals are. Try evolving something that doesn’t involve genetically manipulating your babies, you lonely jellyfish-emulating losers. CW: cursing. Gagging noises.

It may not have happened in lakes but it certainly did happen – so how? Let’s dive into fossilized cloacas, theoretical genitals, and the impracticalities of sexing a dinosaur. CW: sexual content, genitalia, brief discussions of nonconsensual sex between animals, Nanotyrannus, making fun of old white men

From friends to enemies to roommates (to lovers??), we discuss classic examples of animals found fossilized together, how that happens, and how some of the interpretations are… a stretch. CW: Animal death, dead babies, lubed holes, incest, cursing

500 some million years ago the world was full of ‘abnormal shrimp’ and ‘blunt feet’ and other animals that defy comprehensible definitions. In this episode we talk all about the mind-boggling biology and bizarre geology of the Cambrian. CW: Drug references, cursing, dead animals, cavalier jokes at the expense of white men, dick jokes

Bones are sick – and this time, we mean it literally. From infected bite marks to the ever-prevalent markings of tuberculosis, we’re talking about the signs of illnesses and injuries in fossils and what they tell us about the lives (and deaths) of these animals. CW: Cancer, infections and pus, injuries, animal suffering

Did Diplodocus have a trunk? Did T. rex have a wobbly turkey neck? This week’s episode is all about fleshy face flaps and their uses, and how to detect them in the fossil record. CW: Animal death, cursing, making fun of dinosaurs, urine

There were dinosaurs in Antarctica and Alaska – but what did it look like when they lived there? Was it cold? Was it dark? Did they stay there year round? Also, Meaghan learns how magnets work (finally). CW: cursing, death of people and animals

Sometimes boners have actual bones! This episode is all about the evolution, use, and occasional loss of/damage to genital bones in both male and female animals. CW: Cursing, genitalia, brief mention of non-consensual sexual behavior in animals

How much do we really know about the brains of ancient animals? In this episode we dive into the fantastic world of endocasts, aka, brain impressions! CW: soft tissue, cursing, Nanotyrannus, brief mention of the Nazis in regards to Tilly Edinger

Today we’re answering the big questions, like why do whales have hips when they don’t have legs? And why did Tyrannosaurus rex have such tiny tiny arms? CW: Genitalia, cursing, discussion of unwanted sexual contact in whales

From the anal chimneys of crinoids to the tushy lungs of turtles, this episode covers all the weird things that buttholes can do… but shouldn't. CW: Buttholes, cursing, poop, tobacco use, alien abduction

On this podcast we dish the details on the wildest stories that 500 million years of evolution have to offer. The grosser, the better! That said, this podcast is not intended for kids and is rated E for strong language and crude senses of humor. Season 2 begins 6-19-2024!

For our final episode of season 1 we go into detail on how the two of us met, how we got into paleontology, and the various twists and turns that have made up our two careers. CW: Cursing. Yep, that’s all this time – we were surprised too!

From dinosaurs to rhinos to bugs, things used to get a whole lot bigger than they seem to today. In this episode we talk all about evolutionary constraints, the narrow set of bumper bars enforced on us by biology. CW: Body fluids. Using the term bug incorrectly (sorry entomologists). Cursing.

…and then some. From the eggs of the platypus to the eggs of dinosaurs, we’ll talk about how eggs are formed, why humans don’t lay them, and of course, why the egg definitely came before the chicken. CW: Placentas and afterbirth, body fluids, cursing

It’s time to be more afraid of seals, everyone. And hyenas. And tigers. And… birds? And big crocodiles. Really, the deeper you go into human history, the longer that list of fears gets – and on this episode, we go real, real deep. CW: death, dead bodies, being hunted, cannibalism.

Trace fossils are an incredible resource to understand behavior… even behavior those animals wish maybe there wasn’t a record of. From the results of terrible food poisoning to the fossil equivalent of a xeroxed buttocks, trace fossils record some animals’ most humiliating moments. CW: Everything in the title, cursing, stomach stones (bezoars)

Did you know that technically, the name ‘dinosaur’ is a rebrand? The original name was a lot more… wrinkly. In this episode we discuss how to name fossils and bring up the funniest fossil names we could find. CW: Cursing. Discussion of European colonization and Native Americans. Many references to genitalia.

Asteroids, volcanoes, and sex lakes – in this episode we discuss the varied and sometimes hilarious hypotheses of why animals have gone extinct. CW: Extinctions/animal death, toxic shock syndrome, menstruation, serial killers, suicide in reference to having to do geochronology. Referring to non-avian dinosaurs as just dinosaurs.

While usually it’s just the hard bits that fossilize, occasionally the fossil record can preserve things like skin, organs, blood and more. This episode talks about what happens when soft tissue fossilizes, and what weird things scientists have done upon finding it. CW: Dead animals/babies, eating gross things, blood and gushy body bits, placentas.

Sometimes paleontology is awe-inspiring. Sometimes it’s gross and hilarious. This episode is at the weird epicenter of all of those things, because it turns out the best preserved fossil sturgeons are found up the rear end of duck-billed dinosaurs. CONTENT WARNINGS: Hemorrhoids, butt jokes, maligning archeologists, misinterpreting a cloaca as a butthole for the purposes […]

Throughout time we find evidence that animals made it to other continents seemingly by crossing vast oceans. In this episode we talk all about how animals can survive these strange events of accidental seafaring, and how the odds are always stacked against them. CW: Cruel research methods (not ours!), inbreeding, death.