Cenozoic

Episode 156: Bird necks
Published on October 8th, 2023 | by David Marshall
We're joined by "neckspert" Dr Ryan Marek to explore the evolutionary significance of bird necks... Read More →
The Neogene period is a division of earth’s history spanning from around 23 to 0.05 million years ago, and during which the global climate gradually cooled. The continents were largely in their modern positions. One major geographic change was the closure of a seaway known as the Isthmus of Panama when South and North America became connected. This land bridge diverted warm waters northwards, forming the Gulf Stream, and allowed the migration of animals between North and South America. As a result of a cooler global climate, tropical rainforests gradually gave way to grasslands. It was in this environment that the first hominids evolved in Africa and began to spread across the world. The end of the Neogene is marked by the establishment of the glacial conditions, characteristic the Quaternary.
Published on October 8th, 2023 | by David Marshall
We're joined by "neckspert" Dr Ryan Marek to explore the evolutionary significance of bird necks... Read More →
Published on April 20th, 2022 | by David Marshall
We hang out with the sloths of Hispaniola, looking for new species hiding within Dr Robert McAfee's measurements... Read More →
Published on April 15th, 2021 | by David Marshall
We look at rates of evolutionary innovation in crocodiles through time with Dr Tom Stubbs... Read More →
Published on September 15th, 2019 | by Liz Martin-Silverstone
Terror birds, or phorusrhacids as they are known scientifically, are a group of large, flightless birds that lived during the Cenozoic, and truly lived up to their name. Known for their large, powerful skulls, and enormous [&hellip... Read More →
Published on April 15th, 2019 | by Liz Martin-Silverstone
Undoubtedly, Megalodon is the world’s most famous extinct shark is and in this episode, we hear everything we know about this taxon, its ecology and how it got to be so big. Its ultimate extinction is [&hellip... Read More →
Published on June 15th, 2017 | by David Marshall
The proboscideans are a group of animals that contains the elephant and mastodont families. Many of us will be well-aware of these groups, but what of some of the lesser-known proboscideans? One such family are the [&hellip... Read More →
Published on June 2nd, 2016 | by Caitlin Colleary
The Southeastern Association of Vertebrate Paleontology (SeAVP) conference took place on May 16 at the Virginia Museum of Natural History (VMNH) in Martinsville, VA. The conference included students and faculty from nearly a dozen institutions from [&hellip... Read More →
Published on June 15th, 2015 | by Liz Martin-Silverstone
The world is currently undergoing a massive biodiversity crisis, and many people have said that we are in the next major mass extinction event, with species going extinct each day. Unfortunately, we don’t currently understand what aspects [&hellip... Read More →
Published on April 15th, 2015 | by David Marshall
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is a molecule that encodes the genetic information within every species of life on earth. The information contained within the sequence of base pairs determines how any given organism develops and biologically functions. [&hellip... Read More →
Published on August 5th, 2014 | by David Marshall
We’re all familiar with canines (dogs, wolves, jackals, foxes, etc), but these are just only one of three sub-families of the larger canid family to survive to the present day. There were also the Hesperocyoninae and [&hellip... Read More →