Past Time

I tried to google “crocodiles are living fossils,” to see just how commonly that expression was used in popular articles. There were indeed a few articles that referenced this idea, suggesting that croc fossils from 80 million years ago would look identical the skeletons they have today. However, most were news stories reporting various discoveries […]

Erik Gorscak and Pat O'Connor, two paleontologists from Ohio University, are about to set out on an expedition to Antarctica to hunt for fossils from the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. They are part of a larger team called the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project (AP3), an international collaboration of fossil hunters and geologists who are about to spend almost two months at the bottom of the planet. Past Time talks to them about how you look for fossils in Antarctic conditions, how you plan an expedition, and what they hope to find. When they get back, we'll check in and see what they found! @antarcticdinos #AP3 @ohiou

If you wander into the basement of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, and wander into the fossil collections, you will find a vast array of different dinosaurs dating back over 200 million years. However, just a few feet away from the oldest dinosaurs you will find several drawers filled with the […]

With Past Time, Matt and I tend to focus on the new discoveries in paleontology: the new species that show up in the news, or the important specimens discovered in museum collections. These are the raw materials that feed the fires of paleontology as a science. However, observation is only the first step in the […]

On this episode of Past Time, Drs. Matthew Borths and Adam Pritchard share their dissertation stories, and a bit of advice on the grad school experience!

It weighed twice as much as a modern wolf. It had three pairs of meat-slicing teeth. It was the first carnivorous land animal to reach 200 pounds on the entire continent of Europe after the extinction of the dinosaurs. And a team of European scientists and Past Time co-host Matthew Borths just introduced us to it. Ladies and gentlemen: meet Kerberos, monster mammal carnivore!

Arrr, ye mateys! Pour out some grog, and I’ll tell ye a tale of mines, beaches, and death in ancient jungles. I of course be talkin’…about salamanders! Okay, not going to do that voice the whole time (though maybe it should be in the episode), but I will briefly present Palaeoplethodon hispaniolae, the first salamander […]

The oldest basilisk lizard from North America, described by Jack Conrad from NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine, shows the 48 million year old animal was part of an ancient lush jungle ecosystem...in the middle of Wyoming. The beautifully preserved skull has important stories to tell about the evolution of the lizards most famous for their ability to scamper across the water, but it also reveals what North America was like during a greenhouse world that wasn't all that different from what our planet's future may look like.

As Jurassic World rolls out, Matt has some thoughts on the scientific impact of Jurassic Park and offers his hopes for the scientific discussions Jurassic World might spark.

Dating fossils might sound like Saturday night for a paleontologist, but it’s serious science! In a new study, a group of physicists and paleontologists teamed up to re-date one of the most complete skeletons of a human relative ever discovered. The skeleton was discovered in a cave in South Africa twenty years ago, but the […]

Brontosaurus was an extinct name for an extinct animal, but a new study brings the “Thunder Lizard” title roaring back to life! But how does a name get dropped, and how does it get brought back again? Follow us into the winding world of paleontology taxonomy, the study of names. In the 1870s two giant hip […]

In a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi and other paleontontologists described the crocodiles from a gigantic wetland that predated the Amazon. Ten million years ago there was the giant Purussarus, the duck-billed Mourasuchus, the tube-snouted gharial-like croc, a coyote-like croc similar to Paleosuchus, and three new crocs with […]

Under the canopy of an ancient fern forest near the border of Arizona and New Mexico a colossal crocodile-like reptile took a bite out of an even larger, toothy giant. The attack failed and the victim limped on to fight another day, until its carcass was finally pillaged by another scaly monster and smaller, pickier scavengers. Studying bones collected over a century ago, scientists are now able to reconstruct these scenes from the ancient Wild West using new digital tools familiar to fans of C.S.I. Join Matt and Adam as we explore the crazy Triassic world 215 million years ago where a colossal rauisuchian was ambushed by a gigantic phytosaur!

A new fossil shows an ancient reptile, Philydrosaurus, surrounded by young. Possible evidence that parental investment is a more ancient trait in land-based vertebrates than paleontologists thought! Reptiles aren’t known for being great parents. When it comes to time and energy spent with the kids, mammals get all the glory. Birds also spend a lot […]

Researchers lead by Hans-Dieter Sues from the Smithsonian Institution described a wealth of new giant, long-necked dinosaur material from Western Asia (Uzbekistan). They were able to reconstruct what the brain looked like and discvered the dinosaur, part of the lineage called "titanosaurs", is closely related to animals from the far East of Asia, places like China and Laos. They decided there wasn't enough of the giant to give it a name, but they know it and its relatives were able to make a living across the diverse enviroments of Asia 90 million years ago. This is further evidence that tintanosaurs were successful for much of the Age of Dinosaurs both on the Northern and Southern continents. The study: Sues, H.-D., A. Averianov, and R. C. Ridgely, and L. M. Witmer (2015) Titanosauria (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous (Turonian) Bissekty Formation of Uzbekistan. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2014.889145

Iguanodon was discovered before the word "dinosaur" was invented and the story of Iguanodon research is the story of dinosaur research as paleontologists use new fossils to test old ideas about what the animal looked like and how it moved. Was it a lumbering quadruped? A springy kangaroo reptile? A little of both? Join us as we dive into the history of paleontology and the history of Iguanodon, the enthusiastic animal who is always ready to give you two thumbs up!

To conjure up extinct environments, museums, books, and documentaries rely on art to show vanished animals revitalized in their ancient surroundings. This type of educational reconstruction is called Paleoart (or Palaeoart for the UK inclined) and you can't help but look at an image of a roaming Tyrannosaurus rex without wondering, "How much of that is real?" How do we know its bulk, its color, its environment, or its behavior? Where does the science start and the art (and hypothesizing) begin? Julius Csotonyi, a Candian paleoartist, sat down with us to discuss how he assembles his images which are on display in natural history museums across North America and fill his recently published book, The Paleoart of Julius Csotonyi. A single landscape by Julius is a blend of the latest knowledge from paleontologists, zoologists, paleobotanists, geologists, and geochemists, and as new information is learned, he is ready to update his paintings and present the world with a more accurate glimpse into the ancient past.

When we think of paleontologists, we think of people hunkered down with bones, teeth, and shells studying the preserved body parts of dead organisms. But animals leave behind more than just their skeletons. As they walk they can leave behind footprints, as they eat they can leave behind bite marks, and as they finish eating they leave behind…well…what comes from the behind. The study of the traces of past behavior is called ichnology and Dr. Tony Martin (@Ichnologist) and author of “Dinosaurs without Bones” is with us to reveal all the amazing insights a paleontologist can learn from the fossil record, even when there aren’t any bones! He takes us through a wandering heard of sauropod dinosaurs, into the burrow of the dinosaur Oryctodromeus, and across the mudflats of an amphibian-dominated Alabama. These animals may be extinct, but their traces bring them back to thundering life in this episode of Past Time!

When we think of iconic dinosaurs, like T. rex with its massive head full of teeth, and Parasaurolophus crowned with a gigantic, tube-like horn, we’re thinking of the features of adult dinosaurs. But we know from looking around today that animals change a lot from birth to adulthood. Did T. rex always have a massive maw and Parasaurolophus a huge crest? How quickly did they grow in? What were they used for? To really understand the biology of these titans, paleontologists need to study baby dinosaurs to connect the dots from tiny hatchling to adult dinosaur. Unfortunately, the fossils of dino-toddlers are few and far between because their skeletons are usually pretty delicate. In this episode we discuss the improbable discovery of a baby Parasaurolophus with Dr. Andy Farke, a paleontologist from the Raymond Alf Museum and Webb Schools in Clermont, California. Dubbed “Dinosaur Joe”, the young dinosaur was found and studied by young, high school scientists from the Webb School. The high school scientists were p

Marine mammals are fascinating beasts. Whales, manatees, seals, otters...they've all gone back to the water and in the process evolved all kinds of spectacular adaptations to make a living in a soggy setting. Toothed evolved an ability to “see” the underwater world around them using echolocation - basically sonar - to track prey with high-pitched sounds and echoes. A 23 million years old fossil from South Carolina called Cotylocara shows toothed whales could echolocate early in their evolutionary history. A more surprising adaptation to life in the water was preserved with another new whale fossil from California. Called Semirostrum, the new whale has a huge underbite and long chin which was probably used as a sensitive probe to track down buried prey. Whales in the water are interesting, but not unexpected. Our final study examines how SLOTHS adapted to life in the ocean. Thalassocnus was a relative of giant ground sloths, a solidly terrestrial group of animals. A recent study showed how Thalassocnus gradual