Terrible Lizards

In this 2021 clip from Terrible Lizards, Iszi and Dave discuss the fossilised Oviraptor nest that made headlines around the world. Was this really evidence that dinosaurs sat on their eggs like birds, or was the story more complicated?  Discover what embryos inside the eggs reveal about dinosaur parenting, asynchronous hatching, brooding behaviour, and why some palaeontologists think male Ovirapto...

Recorded live at the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival 2026, Iszi Lawrence and Dr Dave Hone tackle questions from the audience on everything from Spinosaurus salt glands and Jurassic World to feathered pterosaurs, Troodon taxonomy, AI in palaeontology and where the next great dinosaur discovery might be hiding. Questions featured in this episode include: • Could pterosaurs perch, hover or even fly backwa...

Mary Anning is one of the most important figures in the history of paleontology  but how much do we really know about her? Recorded live at the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival, Iszi Lawrence and Dr Dave Hone are joined by Kieran Satchell from Lyme Regis Museum to explore the life, discoveries and legacy of the pioneering fossil hunter who helped transform our understanding of prehistoric life. From ich...

Were dinosaur horns brightly coloured? And is there really such a thing as a "top predator"? In this extract of a Terrible Lizards bonus we recorded last year, we tackle two surprisingly big dinosaur questions from our listeners. First: what colour were dinosaur horns and frills? Could horned dinosaurs like Triceratops and other ceratopsians have had vivid displays like modern birds? We explore co...

Can you make a prehistoric documentary without relying on T. rex? We chat to Tim Haines, the man behind Walking with Dinosaurs and the new series Surviving Earth about mammal-like reptiles, giant extinctions, documentary trickery, CGI dinosaurs, weird prehistoric noises and how you make audiences emotionally invest in creatures that may or may not have peed. From gorgonopsians to giant climate shi...

In this short discussion, palaeontologist Dave Hone and Iszi Lawrence chat with podcaster Suzy Buttress about the strangeness of bird eyes... from iris colour and pupil shape, to owls, crocodiles and the frustrating problem of soft tissue in fossils. Could dinosaurs really have had the slit pupils made famous by Jurassic Park? Or have we been picturing dinosaur eyes all wrong? Expect: birds, dinos...

Could a dinosaur hear you whistle? Did giant dinosaurs have gigantic feathers? And would a head-butting dinosaur really scrape the ground like a bull before charging? In this Dinosaur Bite episode, palaeontologist Dr Dave Hone and Iszi Lawrence tackle your brilliantly weird dinosaur questions—exploring how dinosaurs heard the world around them, what their feathers were really like, and whether fam...

https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/giB-id1iEZE When people think of dinosaurs, it's usually the giants that come to mind—but most dinosaur groups began with much smaller, often overlooked species.  Among them are the small ornithopods: fragmentary, tricky to classify, and frequently lost in a tangle of confusing names and incomplete fossils. Yet these mo...

Dr Dave Hone and Iszi react to an old dinosaur movie from the seventees. We recommend watching this as a video, available on our patreon (as well as on Spotify) so you can see what we are reacting to. https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards This dinosaur bite is taken from an old bonus episode for our patrons back in 2021 where we watched the full movie (it was free on YouTube back then) and did a...

Did dinosaurs raise each other's young like modern cuckoos do? Dr Dave Hone and Iszi Lawrence discuss how we would know if brood parasitism existed millions of years ago. To get more bonus material and keep the podcast ad free go to: https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Please support the show, grab extra content and keep the podcast ad free: https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards You can watch this as a video on youtube here: https://youtu.be/z0y9N1bPmGY Having recently caught up with the much-overlooked prosauropods (or at least, overlooked by us), and after many requests from our patrons on patreon, this month we turn our attention to the crocodiles!  Much li...

Iszi and Dave briefly discuss the new Netflix series "Dinosaurs". Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/ejpMkrDDsWw They analyse the accuracy of the trailer including the opening with Spinosaurus's hunting technique, neck musculature, and nostril placement, comparing it to real-world evidence and previous research.  You can watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ZBSzYUTL0  Keep...

Dinosaurs in the Arctic and Antarctic likely survived cold conditions by using similar strategies to extant species.  The discovery of a new T. rex femur, nicknamed Goliath, potentially validates predictions about the maximum size of these dinosaurs. Or Does it? You can watch this as a video on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/0iVP_E0BfM0 Please keep the podcast advert free and get more bonus conten...

 This is available to watch on youtube here: https://youtu.be/R-GgkboCjA8 Support the podcast (keep it advert free) and get exclusive content: https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards We have talked plenty about dinosaurs in pop culture, including in movies, but this is hardly a modern phenomenon. Dinosaurs were getting into the mainstream almost as soon as they appeared on the scientific scene and...

Little Dinosaur bite for you! Support us for extra bonus episodes here:  https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards Covering two new papers: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2026/february/new-sabre-crested-spinosaurus-species-named-from-desert-dinosaur-fossils.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2026/january/europes-missing-ceratopsian-dinosaurs-have-finally-been-found.html Watch on youtube h...

You can watch this episode on youtube here: https://youtu.be/QI_nmQPADcE Support the podcast and get extra content by going to: https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards In this episode from 2022, we delve into an incident that occurred in a Lower Cretaceous tracksite in Utah. A digger driven by the Bureau of Land Management accidentally drove over dinosaur tracks, causing damage to the site. This i...

Dinosaur Bites is taken from a live we did back in 2024. We ask where are the Australian Dinosaurs? What was the first ever Dinosaur? Why are only small dinosaurs feathered? (or are they...)  You can watch this as a video here: https://youtu.be/UqUzAgcWMRg Terrible Lizards is a dinosaur podcast with Dr Dave Hone from Queen Mary University and Iszi Lawrence. To support the podcast and unlock extra...

You can watch this episode as a video on youtube: https://youtu.be/C2atVWsvkS0 To support the show/get bonus content: www.patreon.com/terriblelizards We've barely mentioned African dinosaurs (apart from you-know-what) over the years and have repeatedly failed to give much love to the early sauropodomorphs either (the 'prosauropods'). Happily, this month we're getting a great two-for-one deal by sp...

Dinosaur Bites 002 Terrible Lizards Podcast returns with a discussion on dinosaur colours, and Compsognathus, from a 2021 live session. We talk about the preservation of dinosaur colours is limited to certain pigments and while some colours may not preserve well, the organisation of melanosomes is a more significant factor. And candidate for the cutest dinosaurs: Compsognathids, a group of small t...

A short extract from a live we did back in 2021 about these two new #spinosaur species: Riparovenator and Ceratosuchops. If you want to find out more about these animals please listen to the free full episode on youtube: https://youtu.be/jO6gyw-onBY?si=qHQ6oJ0wnqxJAaX- or find 'TLS05E01 Riparovenator and Ceratosuchops' on your podcast feed.  https://terriblelizards.libsyn.com/tls05e01-riparovenato...

Thanks to our wonderful Patrons we are planning video as well as audio versions of the podcast from now on! Just as we have for the Bonus Episodes. (N.B. Sometimes video may not be possible but we are hoping it will be! We are still a two-man-with-occasional-help-from-Simon band. ) If you want to watch this podcast rather than just listen head to iszitube: https://youtu.be/5w83FHoFU7Q We will also...

The biggest news in palaeontology this year dropped just in time for us to miss it with last month's episode but we're giving it the full hour this time. The idea that there's a miniature tyrannosaur running around in the Late Cretaceous alongside Tyrannosaurus has long been a contentious one, with most palaeontologists favouring the interpretation that the specimens represented juvenile rexes. Bu...

Dave has *another* book coming out and so of course he wants to talk about it a bit on the pod. Happily for the listeners, this time out he has a coauthor and so we get to have palaeontologist and palaeoartist Mark Witton on as well so that Iszi has some support for once. The new book is on that most controversial of dinosaurs, Spinosaurus and its allies, and what we know, and what we don't, and w...

Long time listener and second time guest Darren Naish joins us to talk about marine reptiles. While Darren is best known for his work on dinosaurs and pterosaurs, he has fingers in a huge number of vertebrate pies, and he has a new edition out of his book on all of the Mesozoic monsters that lived in the sea. So, strap in for an incredibly being tour of mosasaurs, mesosaurs, placodonts, ichthyosau...

Disaster with the recording this episode! Sorry if it is hard to hear in places we were forced to use the emergency back up! Disaster with the recording this episode! Sorry if it is hard to hear in places we were forced to use the emergency back up!  Listeners may remember that Dave went to Utah a couple of years back to try and help with a sauropod excavation. That trip was with sauropod supremo...