Coil, a brown cartoon snake, and Bask, a green and beige cartoon croc, happily look toward the black on white Common Descent Podcast Title banner.

Author: commondescentpc

  • Episode 48 – Sharks

    Listen to Episode 48 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you find your podcasts.

    And don’t forget to submit your question for our End Of The Year Q&A!

    In this episode we discuss sharks and their evolutionary history. Sharks are well know today as the top predators in many of the world’s ocean environments, but this wasn’t always the case. We’re covering the features that define a sharks and taking a look at some of the most interesting cases along the 400 million year story of shark evolution.

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  • Episode 47 – Early Synapsids (“Proto-Mammals”)

    Listen to Episode 47 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you find your podcasts.

    *Don’t forget to submit your questions for our End Of The Year Q&A!

    In today’s world, there is only one group of synapsids: the mammals. But for a good 100 million years before true mammals appeared, a diverse array of non-mammalian synapsids dominated ecosystems on land. In this episode, we’re following the story of synapsid evolution from their earliest lizard-like ancestors right up to the origin of true mammals.

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  • Episode 46 – Cryptozoology

    Listen to Episode 46 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or other podcast providers.

    The world is full of strange and miraculous creatures, but some believe there are even stranger creatures yet to be discovered. Mysterious beasts have been in human stories since we started telling them, and even today, there are still tales of animals hidden from science. This is the focus of Cryptozoology.

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  • Episode 45 – The Permian Extinction

    Listen to Episode 45 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or other podcast providers.

    252 million years ago, there was an event so dramatic that it wiped out almost all life on the planet; so dramatic that it brought an end to the entire 300-million-year-long Paleozoic Era; so dramatic that it has come to be known as “The Great Dying.” In this episode, we discuss Earth history’s worst mass extinction: The Permian Extinction.

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  • SciFest in St. Louis

    Will and David took a trip to St. Louis for SciFest: Rock, Fossil, Quake on September 22nd!

    You can listen to us discuss the event and to our interviews with paleontologists on PodBean Spotify, YouTube, and other podcast places.

    The paleontologists we spoke with were:
    Dr. Ashley Morhardt, Washington University
    Dr. Andy Farke, Raymond Alf Museum
    Dr. Denver Fowler, Badlands Dinosaur Museum
    Dr. Casey Holliday, University of Missouri
    Dr. Liz Freedman Fowler, Dickinson State University
    Josh Matthews, Burpee Museum

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  • Episode 44 – Hybridization

    Listen to Episode 44 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or other podcast providers near you.

    In today’s episode we discuss the weird world of hybrids. The fact that different species of organisms sometimes breed has thrown a wrench into the scientific understanding of species and how they function for centuries. We won’t be solving that problem in this episode but we will cover how hybrids are made, why they’re made, how species stay separate, and what can happen when species (or other groups) interbreed.

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  • Episode 43 – The Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI)

    Listen to Episode 43 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever podcasts are sold (just kidding, it’s free!).

    For tens of millions of years, North and South America were separate sisters across the sea, each with their own unique ecosystems. That is, until around 3 million years ago, when tectonic activity birthed the Isthmus of Panama and allowed an incredible mass migration of life across the bridge: The Great American Biotic Interchange.

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  • Spotlight, Invertebrate Paleontologists

    Welcome to our Spotlight Series!

    Listen to Spotlight on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you catch pods!

    We’re talking paleo-science with some paleo-people! Across this 5-part series, you’ll get to know some paleontologists as we interview them about their research and their lives as scientists.

    Our theme for this series is Invertebrate Paleontology

    Here on this blog post, we’ll collect information on our guests, ways you can find them on the internet, and some photos of what we discussed in the episodes!

    We’ll be updating this post as we release our Spotlight episodes throughout September!

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  • Episode 42 – Spinosaurs

    Listen to Episode 42 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or a podcast app near you!

    This episode we’re back on the subject of dinosaurs! Specifically, a very popular, very bizarre group of theropod dinosaurs known for their croc-like faces, ridiculous ornamentation, and a whole lot of scientific argument: the Spinosaurs.

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  • Episode 41 – The Evolution of Whales

    Listen to Episode 41 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or your preferred podcast place!

    This episode – the second most requested topic to date – deals with some of the largest and cleverest animals our planet has ever seen. We discuss how one group of mammals developed and moved from land to the sea as we explore the Evolution of Whales.

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  • Episode 40 – Madagascar

    Listen to Episode 40 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or your preferred podcast place!

    In this episode, we’re zooming in on one of the world’s most diverse and fascinating locales – the island of Madagascar! You may know that Madagascar is home to a variety of fascinating ecosystems today, but the geologic and fossil history of the island is just as exciting!

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  • Episode 39 – Speculative Evolution

    Listen to Episode 39 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast source!

    Our subject for this episode is a bit more abstract than our typical topics. Here we discuss the subject of speculative evolution. This concept covers everything from imaging what the future of life will look like to figuring out how movie monsters might have actually functioned. Here we’ll visit some of the ideas that are commonly explored in these thought experiments and look at how speculation contributes to real science.

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