The Mesozoic era, meaning “middle life”, is a division of earth’s history spanning from around 252 to 66 million years ago. It is subdivided into the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The beginning of the Mesozoic is characterised by a long phase of recovery following the end Permian mass extinction. The end of the Mesozoic is marked by the Cretaceous/Paleogene extinction event which wiped out the dinosaurs among other groups.
Published on December 10th, 2014 | by David Marshall
Ceratopsians are some of the most iconic dinosaurs that we recognise today including animals like Triceratops and Styracosaurus, with their big horns and frills. But is that what all ‘horned dinosaurs’ looked like? In fact, early [&hellip... Read More →
Published on December 1st, 2014 | by David Marshall
Theropods are what we would classically recognise as the meat-eating dinosaurs of the Mesozoic Era. They are best known from genera such as Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor but the group is much more diverse and includies herbivores, beaked [&hellip... Read More →
Published on October 16th, 2014 | by David Marshall
Ostracods are tiny crustaceans (relatives of shrimps, crabs and water-fleas), distinguished by having a shell that is easily fossilised. As microfossils, by virtue of a long and rich fossil record, ostracods are extremely useful for determining [&hellip... Read More →
Published on June 1st, 2014 | by David Marshall
One of the longest-ranging and outwardly primitive-looking groups of animals on the planet are the Medusozoa. In consisting of around 95% water, it may be surprising to know that there is a fossil record of jellyfish, [&hellip... Read More →
Published on January 1st, 2014 | by Laura Soul
Marsupials are a group of mammals best known from Australia, but are also present in South America and up to the southern and eastern parts of the USA. Despite their current geographical distribution, metatherians (the group [&hellip... Read More →
Published on December 1st, 2013 | by David Marshall
What are Mass extinctions, how are they quantified, what are the driving forces behind them, how bad were the ones in the past and will we have more in the future? To answer these questions we [&hellip... Read More →
Published on October 15th, 2013 | by David Marshall
Most people would consider fire to be an entirely destructive process, however given the right circumstances organic materials can be exquisitely preserved by charcoalification. We no doubt all know charcoal from the BBQ, but how many of [&hellip... Read More →
Published on October 1st, 2013 | by David Marshall
In this episode we talk to Jørn Hurum, Associate Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Natural History Museum Oslo, Norway. Jørn has varied research interests including dinosaurs and mammals (being one of the team of researchers who described [&hellip... Read More →
Published on April 1st, 2013 | by David Marshall
Ichnology is the study of trace fossils (also termed ichnofossils). Opposed to body fossils, the physical remains of an organism, trace fossils are the fossilised interactions between an organism and the substrate/sediment and include such things [&hellip... Read More →
Published on March 1st, 2013 | by David Marshall
Every palaeontologist needs to put their feet up once in a while, and what better place to do so than at the Best Western Denver Southwest? This hotel is located just a stone’s-throw away from Dinosaur [&hellip... Read More →
Episode 160: An introduction to Evolutionary Biology
March 22nd | by
Why did Sauropods grow so big?
March 4th | by
Episode 159: An Introduction to Palaeontology
February 19th | by
200 Years of Dinosaurs
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Episode 158: Ceoptera evansae
February 6th | by
