Listen to Episode 166 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!

You’ll only find them living in Australia and New Guinea, and when you do, you might be surprised at the strange features that set them apart from all other mammals, like the fact that their babies hatch from eggs. This episode, we discuss the unique features and puzzling evolution of Monotremes.

In the news
New mosasaur has strange many-ridged teeth
Tibetan sabertooth cats adapted to open environments
Growth patterns of giant tree-climbing marsupials
Scant remains hint at a giant pliosaur from England

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Listen to Episode 165 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!

Faced with the problem of dispersing seeds, flowering plants developed special seed-carrying structures that are perhaps most familiar to you from your visits to the grocery store. This episode, we discuss the evolution, functions, and incredible diversity of Fruit.

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Listen to Episode 164 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!

Earth’s deep history is filled with dramatic cases of changing climates, shifting continents, and evolutionary leaps and bounds, but between roughly 1.8 and 0.8 billion years ago, things were seemingly stable. This episode, we explore the many mysteries of the so-called “Boring Billion.”

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Listen to Episode 163 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!

Check the fingers and toes of your favorite vertebrates and you’re likely to find hardened little end-caps on them! This episode, we discuss the many forms and functions of Claws.

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Listen to Episode 162 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!

Slimy, worm-shaped, and poorly-understood, they’re the most mysterious of the modern amphibians, and they’re full of bizarre surprises from their heads to their butts. This episode, we explore Caecilians.

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Listen to Episode 161 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!

We all do it. Well, all of us humans do it. When it comes to other organisms, it gets complicated. Actually, it’s complicated for humans, too. This episode, we discuss the whos, hows, and mysterious whys of Sleep.

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Listen to Episode 160 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!

One of the best fossil sites in the world is a former mining site in Germany. It preserves an exceptional record of an Eocene ecosystem, including thousands of exquisitely preserved fossil specimens. This episode, we discuss the history and discoveries of The Messel Pit.

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Listen to Episode 159 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!

Some animals are so familiar and famous that it’s easy to forget how utterly strange they are. This episode, we discuss the relatives, ancient history, and big questions surrounding the evolution of Giraffes.

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Listen to Episode 158 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!

There was a time when artwork depicting ancient animals was uncommon and even unexpected. The modern world of paleoart owes its existence in large part to an animal artist who became perhaps the most influential paleoartist of all time: Charles R. Knight.

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Listen to Episode 157 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!

Earth is full of glowing organisms. Some glow in the light of the sun, while others produce their own light in the darkest parts of the planet. This episode, we look at the incredible phenomena of Bioluminescence and Biofluorescence.

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