News

On the origin of my first species: Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda

fossil Dinosauria new species

I can’t imagine how ecstatic 9-year-old me would have felt if I told him he would get to unveil to the world a new fossil species, let alone one that informs on the oldest dinosaurs. 25-year-old me is pretty happy with the work too, but to be honest, it is not thrill or joy that [&hellip

18/09/2026 palaeocast

Episode 177: Cambrian Fecal Revolution

Cambrian fossil evolution

The Cambrian Explosion is one of the most significant events in evolutionary history. Classically, it describes the sudden appearance of complex fossils (including all major animal groups) at the beginning of the Cambrian Period. Before then it was thought that only relatively simple single-celled or multicellular life existed. We now understand this event to be [&hellip

17/08/2026 palaeocast

Episode 175/176: Insect Gigantism

Carboniferous

Can respiration be key to understanding gigantism in Carboniferous insects

02/05/2026 palaeocast

Episode 174: A History of Dinosaurs in 50 Fossils

museum fossil specimen Dinosauria

Prof. Paul Barrett of the Natural History Museum, London, recently authored A History of Dinosaurs in 50 Fossils. We took this as an opportunity to get an overview of what we really know about dinosaurs and how it’s even possible to tell their story with just 50 specimens. In this episode, Paul discusses the history [&hellip

15/04/2026 palaeocast

Episode 173: Petrified Forest

United States Chinle Late Triassic Triassic formation

Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona, USA is a hub for Triassic palaeontology and has exposures representing 20 million years of the Late Triassic Chinle Formation. Visitors marvel at the colourful fossilised trees from which the park takes its name, but a whole host of animals called these swampy forests home 225 million years [&hellip

17/03/2026 palaeocast

Episode 172: Rhynchocephalians

New Zealand

Today, there is only one living species of rhynchocephalian: the tuatara of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Despite today’s paucity of species, this was once a diverse group of reptiles, with a wide range of lifestyles from swimming in the ocean to climbing trees. Once highly abundant around the world, reasons for their decline are still debated and [&hellip

05/02/2026 palaeocast

Episode 171: Freshwater Mosasaurs

Hell Creek Mosasaurus formation

We dip into the freshwaters of the Hell Creek Formation. Oh dear

12/12/2025 palaeocast

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting 2025

United Kingdom

For 2025, SVP’s Annual Meeting was held in Birmingham, UK, giving the Palaeocast crew easy access to one of the world’s biggest palaeontological conferences. Emily and Filippo were able to record interviews with many of the delegates and the organisers of the event. Since it’s not always possible to find the time and money to [&hellip

03/12/2025 palaeocast

Episode 170: Cariocecus bocagei

Cretaceous Jurassic Late Jurassic Cariocecus Iguanodontia

The iguanodontians were an incredibly successful group within the Cretaceous. They could reach incredible sizes, with the largest species even matching the proportions of some sauropods, and they also had an incredible palaeogeographic range, meaning that their remains are found all over the world today. In the late Jurassic, they were a lot less diverse [&hellip

15/09/2025 palaeocast

Episode 168/169: Grasslands

Grass dominated ecosystems cover 40% of the land on Earth. Prof. Caroline Strömberg explains why they are so successful

01/09/2025 palaeocast

Langebaanweg Part 3 – An Animal Archive

museum fossil

While we have discussed the importance of Langebaanweg in terms of its geological positioning and history, the thing it is really famous for is the incredible size and diversity of its fossil assemblage. In the last 60 years the collections of the Iziko Museum in Cape Town have been filled with as much as one [&hellip

22/08/2025 palaeocast

A palaeontologist’s book review of A Secret History of Sharks

Cretaceous Permian

For approximately 450 million years, sharks and their cartilaginous relatives have been a major hallmark of marine life. Withstanding multiple cataclysmic events, most notably those at the end of the Permian and Cretaceous, and maintaining a great diversity in today’s oceans, the evolutionary history of sharks is a lengthy, gripping tale of one of the [&hellip

09/08/2025 palaeocast