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.
Listen to Episode 151 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!
For most animals, the body doesn’t end at the hips! That final stretch of anatomy comes in many shapes and sizes suitable to a wide variety of lifestyles. This episode, we discuss the diversity and biological importance – past and present – of Tails.
Listen to Episode 148 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!
Powered flight has only evolved a few times, but it’s incredible how many times and how ways evolution has produced organisms that sail through the sky. This episode, we discuss the astonishing diversity – past and present – of Gliding.
Listen to Episode 147 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!
Our understanding of evolution would be incomplete without knowledge of what, deep down, determines the traits of an organism and, crucially, how those traits are passed from parent to offspring. This episode, we discuss the foundational field of Genetics.
Listen to Episode 140 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!
Animals have a consistent habit of developing ornamentation on their heads for a variety of functions. In this episode, we discuss the diversity, terminology, and behavior associated with Horns and Antlers.
Listen to Episode 130 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you can sniff it out!
With every breath you take, you collect information about your surroundings. This amazing ability is shared across the animal kingdom (and beyond). In this episode, we discuss the diversity and evolutionary history of our Sense of Smell.
Listen to Episode 121 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you feel like it!
Most animals have some form of nervous system, and in many cases that nervous system is monitored and regulated by a complex and fascinating organ-in-command. This episode, we discuss the diversity, fossil record, and evolution of Brains.
Listen to Episode 97 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you’d like!
From microbes to mushrooms, spiders to snakes, urchins to us, all life engages in chemical warfare. Toxins produced by organisms are enormously varied in their origins, functions, and evolutionary histories. In this episode, we discuss the nasty chemicals that make up Venom and Poison.
Listen to Episode 92 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or just search for it in your podcast app!
Animals are many and varied, but one of the things nearly all of them share is that they start life off inside a small and special capsule complete with everything the growing embryo needs for protection and nutrition. In this episode, we discuss the diversity, evolution, and fossil history of Eggs.
Listen to Episode 88 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or your preferred podcatching method!
We have them, you have them, and vertebrates throughout Earth history have had them. The history of vertebrate life, the study of vertebrate paleontology, and the myriad ways we have to discuss and describe living and fossil animals and their ecological roles are tied tightly to the Evolution of Teeth.
The Common Descent Podcast 