Episode 67 – The La Brea Tar Pits

Listen to Episode 67 on PodBean, iTunes, YouTube or your podcast source of choice! And don’t forget the Bonus Episode: Voices of La Brea!

Join us as we explore one of the most famous fossil sites in the world. It’s not in a desert or on a mountain, but in the heart of one of the largest cities in North America. It’s also one of the best places on Earth to understand the changes in climate and ecology at the very end of the Ice Age. This episode, we take a trip to the La Brea Tar Pits.

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Episode 66 – Elephants

Listen to Episode 66 on PodBean, iTunes, YouTube or wherever you’d like!

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the largest land mammals that have ever lived. We’ll explore the handful of modern species and their extraordinarily diverse evolutionary history. From mammoths to mastodons, shovel-tuskers to miniature island-dwellers, the fossil record is full of bizarre elephants.

Episode 65 – The Late Devonian Extinction(s)

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It’s Episode 65, and you know what that means … extinction! This time, we address what is traditionally considered one of the “Big 5,” but doesn’t seem to be “one” extinction at all. Geologists and paleontologists continue to work at piecing together the various causes and consequences that create an extended series – several millions years long – of very unfortunate events that altogether comprise the Late Devonian Extinction(s).

Episode 64 – Paleoart

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What would our science be without art? Fossils make for great photos, but a key part of paleontology is our ability to reconstruct long-dead organisms as living, functioning beings. In this episode, we’re joined by paleoartist and herpetologist Gabriel Ugueto as we discuss the many ways artists attempt to recreate ancient species through Paleoart.

Episode 63 – Sexual Selection

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Sex adds a whole other level of complexity to the lives of organisms. On top of the struggle to survive fueling natural selection, they must also compete to find a mate and reproduce. In this episode, we discuss one of the more bizarre mechanisms driving evolution: Sexual Selection.

Episode 62 – Amber

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For hundreds of millions of years, trees have produced resin. In the right conditions, that resin can harden and persist in the fossil record, and when we’re lucky, it can take with it all sorts of amazing organic remains that normally escape the fossil record: rare species, evidence of ecological interaction, and even behaviors caught in progress. This episode, we talk about the amazing world of Amber.

Episode 61 – Behavior in the Fossil Record

Listen to Episode 61 on PodBean, iTunes, YouTube or that other podcast player you like!

Ancient animals didn’t just stand around. They moved, interacted, hunted, reproduced, and did all the things animals do. It’s easy to image all of that information is lost to time, but there are all sorts of ways paleontologists can find those clues. In this episode, we’re exploring the tools, techniques, and amazing fossil finds that help us understand Behavior in the Fossil Record.