Pals in Palaeo

Adele chats with special guest Sally Hurst about the Found a Fossil project and what to do if you think you found an ancient relic or archaeological artefact in Australia! Sally shares what it was like growing up in rural New South Wales, working at the National Dinosaur Museum, and how her love of archaeology, ancient Egypt and dinosaurs led her to science communication and surveying the Australi...

Join Adele and friends of the show Ben Francischelli, Jake Kotevski, Ruairidh Duncan and Astrid O'Connor for our first ever live show recorded during National Science Week! The panel talks Prehistoric Bayside, PhD research topics, the fossils we'd love to find, and end with a Q&A session.  Links: Ben's episode Jake's episode Ruairidh's episode Astrid's episode   P...

Join Adele and special guest museum curator Kevin Petersen for a chat about Australia's newest pterosaur, Haliskia ! Kev takes us through the discovery and preparation of the specimen, whilst Adele tackles the form, function and family grouping of this new species.  Plus why Kevin loves turtle fossils, and pterosaurs puking pellets. Haliskia 100-million-year-old fossil find reveals huge flyin...

Adele bounces off ideas with Dr Isaac Kerr to talk about extinct kangaroos! Isaac kicks things off by telling us about trips to New Guinea, the Smithsonian, American Natural History Museum and the NHM, photographing specimens and 3D scanning. We then hop into Protemnodon, discussing three new species, fieldwork in Lake Callabonna, and why fossil hunting is like fishing crossed with Christmas.  Isa...

Adele's joined by special guest Nathan Phillips, a self-confessed dinosaur nerd and Australian Age of Dinosaurs alumni who's a pro at making moulds and casts of fossils! We chat about tools of the trades, how to make fossil replicas, why it makes science more accessible and some of the most challenging specimens Nathan's worked with. Plus a quick random fossil fact on the mythologic...

Adele speaks with special guest Kane Fleury, curator of Natural Science at Tūhura Otago Museum in Dunedin, New Zealand! Kane talks us through what steps were taken to move a fossil trackway made by the Moa, a famous flightless bird - plus extra info on avian extinctions in Aotearoa affecting the Adzebill and Haast's Eagle. We also touch on trilobite conga lines, Locked in Time by Dr Dean Loma...

Adele’s joined by special guest Ruairidh Duncan to talk about ornithopod dinosaurs and whales! We reminisce about the 90s and get nostalgic over the Natural History Museum in London, get the facts on herbivores from the Cretaceous coast and dive into the mysterious world of mysticetes AKA baleen whales AKA moustached whales!   Plus info on Mammalodon, Basilosaurus, Ambulocetus and early whale evol...

Join Adele and digital necromancer Jac O'Connor on a deep dive into Zygomaturus! The so-called 'marsupial rhino' AKA a honking huge megafauna and close cousin of Diprotodon. Plus hot takes on scientific papers, science communication, the dark side of nomenclature and how giant ground sloths accidentally brought the avocado to South America. Jac O'Connor on Instagram @palaeojac...

Join Adele and special guest Alyssa Fjeld as they explore everyone's favourite extinct arthropods, Trilobites (AKA sea cockroaches)! We compare moulting in bugs to levelling up in a video game, discuss the advantages of having a punk phase and how building a segmented body is like playing with Lego. Pals in Palaeo @palsinpalaeo Host: Adele Pentland @palaeodel Online Store Transcripts The Pals...

Adele banters with Ben Francischelli aka A Fool's Experiment about the lost world of Beaumaris to talk about the prehistoric Pelagornis, a giant bird with a pseudo teeth.  Plus tangents on short-faced kangaroos and other megafauna, mass death assemblages, the megalodon, and Ben's favourite, Livyatan, a macropredator sperm whale inspired by the mythical sea serpent and the misadventures o...

Adele’s joined by special guest Dr Aaron Camens from Flinders University to talk about the original drop bear and so-called marsupial lion, Thylacoleo carnifex ! We talk about combining fossils with footprints and bite marks to get the facts on the ankle-biting hunting tactics of this ambush predator, its weird opposable thumbs, and the roles of climate change and First Nations peoples in the mega...

Adele chats with expert Dr Ellen Mather about ancient aves from Australia, and her work on extinct eagles and vultures from the Pleistocene period!   We also touch on the pecking order of scavenging birds, crawling through caves to collect fossils, the hunting tactics of avian apex predators and how straighter wing bones let an animal soar above the competition. This episode of Pals in Paleo uses...

Adele’s joined by special guest from Flinders Palaeo Lab Phoebe McInerney to talk about magnificent mihirungs and the giant flightless bird Genyornis! We chat about pivoting to paleontology after physiotherapy and dance, falling in love with birds and fieldwork at Lake Callabonna.  We get the gossip on killer cassowary kicks, stomach stones and why Genyornis is the original horrible goose and earn...

Adele’s chats with special guest, Dr Travis Holland about Jurassic Park!  We talk about the film 30 years on, how it changed the public perception of dinosaurs, especially theropods like Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor and Dilophosaurus (for better or worse), and how JP made terrible lizards into movie monsters.   Plus the secret ingredient to good science fiction, Spielberg and Crichton's repres...

Join Adele and special guest Lucas Canejo to talk about the toothless pterosaur Caiuajara! We take a trip through an ancient animal graveyard, discover dinosaurs in the desert, discuss bizarre head shapes and about the secret life of winged reptiles. Plus thoughts on fieldwork, trading teaching for fossils and volunteer work with Museu Nacional, the National Museum of Brazil. Pals in Palaeo @palsi...

Adele's partner in crime is the palaeo formerly known as Samantha Rigby and fellow Australian Age of Dinosaurs alumni! We revisit Winton in outback Australia to chat about sauropods, bones behaving like bubble wrap, bounding baby dinosaurs, and the advantages of 3D scanning.    Plus a quick random fossil fact on Dippy the Diplodocus starring as a Krayt dragon on Tatooine in Star Wars.  Pals i...

Crikey! Adele takes a trip in time to the Late Oligocene to Middle Miocene (25 - 13.5 million years ago) to explore fossil crocs with special guest Dr Jorgo Ristevski. We hear about the adorable but extinct Trilophosuchus, other fossils from the Riversleigh World Heritage Site, as well as Quinkana. Plus a tangent on Gunggamarandu aka the river boss and largest extinct croc ever discovered in Austr...

Join Adele and Dr Kailah Thorn, the Australian lizard queen on an odyssey through the fossil skink record! We discuss the indestructible shingleback lizards, fieldwork at Lake Frome, lizards bulldozing through fields of flowers and the biggest skink from Australia, Tiliqua frangens aka the mega chonk. Plus facts on Proegernia mikebulli, the the oldest skink ever found in Australia and an ancestor...

Adele’s joined by special guest and theropod fanboy Jake Kotevski to talk about megaraptors! We talk about pursuing palaeontology after genetics, T rex tattoos, digging with Dinosaur Dreaming and building the Bass Coast Dinosaur Trail. Plus weird Jurassic Park trivia involving Arnold Schwarzenegger, the controversy surrounding Nanotyrannus and info on the Cretaceous dinosaurs Australovenator and M...

Join Adele and special guest Cella Siegelman aka Gummmydragon for a review of Jurassic World Dominion! We compare the dinosaurs from Dominion with Prehistoric Planet, talk Therizinosaurus claws, hype up the importance of palaeoart, plus the impact of the Jurassic Park series. Hold onto your butts! GummmyDragon Instagram GummmyDragon Shop GummmyDragon Kickstarter Links Functional space analyses rev...

Adele is joined by sauropod expert Dr Stephen Poropat to about talk Savannasaurus elliottorum, the species he names in 2016! Recorded after a big day of dinosaur digging, we explore the Cretaceous of Queensland and get the facts on one of Australia's chonkiest titanosaurs.  Hear how a dinosaur obsessed kid who brought his Apatosaurus to the nativity became an expert in palaeontology. Plus how...

Join palaeontologists Adele Pentland and Dr Martin Smith on a fossil fever dream through the Cambrian!  This episode we discuss the spicy noodle Hallucigenia (an inch long worm with spikes, claws and Cthulhu tentacles), family ties to the velvet worms and frolic through the famous Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies.  Plus de-extinction of 32,000 year old Pleistocene plants from Siberia, revived...

Adele chats with Australian Museum palaeontologist Lachlan Hart about the new Triassic temnospondyl species he named, Arenaerpeton supinatus ! A fossil discovered in a sandstone block by a retired chicken farmer, that went on display as part of the Dinosaur World Tour in 1997.  We discuss the shocking secret world of these extinct animals, including cannibalism in amphbians, horns, tusks, and toxi...

Adele dives into the Devonian oceans to talk about the colossal armoured fish Dunkleosteus. An ancient apex predator about as big as a shark, with bone-crushing jaws. You're gonna need a bigger boat! Plus tangents on coprolites and the accidental discovery of an ancient species of beetle from Triassic poop from Poland. Links: How Dinosaur Poop Got Its Name What is a coprolite? Dunkleosteus Ec...

Join Adele and guest Dr Nathan Smith on an adventure through the Jurassic forests of Antarctica (180 million years ago) as we talk about one of the coolest dinosaurs, Cryolophosaurus (the overlooked cousin of Dilophosaurus ). We also touch on pterosaurs from Madagascar, fieldwork in frozen lands, the advantages of a pompadour and why this theropod is nicknamed Elvis! Links: A Crested Theropod Dino...