Listen to Episode 126 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or anywhere you can find it!
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Communication is key among organisms. Various signals – sights, sounds, smells – can serve to warn, attract, or manipulate others. So it’s no surprise that many organisms have evolved to copy the signals of others for their own deceitful purposes. In this episode, we discuss the diversity and evolution of Mimicry.
Listen to Episode 114 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or pick your favorite place for podcasts!
Far to the north and far to the south, conditions on Earth get weird. Cold climates and periods of perpetual night or day create some of the most unique habitats on the planet, and yet life has thrived there throughout Earth history and continues to do so today. This episode, we discuss the diversity, history, and adaptations of Polar Life.
Listen to Episode 112 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you can dig it up!
Subterranean passages and chambers within the crust of the Earth form unique environments, often carved out over thousands of years, which create homes for rare and bizarre groups of organisms and provide valuable fossil resources. This episode, we discuss the geology, biology, and paleontology of Caves.
Listen to Episode 111 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or borrow it from a friend!
There isn’t much on Earth like an ant colony or a beehive. It’s a bizarre lifestyle, creating multi-generational groups where most members don’t reproduce but protect the offspring of others. This episode, we discuss the questions surrounding the details and evolution of Eusociality.
Listen to Episode 105 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever podcasts are provided!
Most plants are content to sit still and take in sunlight and soil nutrients, but when conditions are tough, some plants get hungry! The habit of devouring animal prey has evolved in plants numerous times. In this episode, we discuss the varied strategies and evolutionary history of Carnivorous Plants.
Listen to Episode 102 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever your friends are listening!
It may not sound appealing, but without a doubt one of the most successful of all life strategies is to siphon, steal, and exploit resources from other living things. In this episode, we discuss the evolution, deep history, and extraordinary diversity of Parasites.
Listen to Episode 81 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or anywhere you’d like!
All animals change as they get older. Typically these changes are slow and subtle, but many animals famously undergo sudden and dramatic changes from young to adult – caterpillars to butterflies; fry to fish; or tadpoles to frogs. In this episode, we discuss the diversity and history of the incredible phenomenon called Metamorphosis.
Listen to Episode 63 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or that other podcast player you like!
Sex adds a whole other level of complexity to the lives of organisms. On top of the struggle to survive fueling natural selection, they must also compete to find a mate and reproduce. In this episode, we discuss one of the more bizarre mechanisms driving evolution: Sexual Selection.
Listen to Episode 61 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or that other podcast player you like!
Ancient animals didn’t just stand around. They moved, interacted, hunted, reproduced, and did all the things animals do. It’s easy to image all of that information is lost to time, but there are all sorts of ways paleontologists can find those clues. In this episode, we’re exploring the tools, techniques, and amazing fossil finds that help us understand Behavior in the Fossil Record.
Listen to Episode 52 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or anywhere they have podcasts!
The sounds that animals make are a huge part of their behavior and how we recognize them. The sounds that prehistoric animals made, on the other hand, are lost to the past. But perhaps not entirely. There have been a few instances where fossils have given us clues to the noises these animals may have made, allowing paleontologists to reconstruct the Sounds of the Past.
The Common Descent Podcast 