Browsing the "Paleozoic" Category

The Paleozoic era, meaning “ancient life”, is a division of earth’s history spanning from around 541 to 252 million years ago. It is subdivided into the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian periods. The beginning of the Paleozoic is characterised by the sudden appearance of animal ecosystems following the extinction of the Precambrian Ediacaran fauna. The end of the Paleozoic is marked by the greatest mass extinction in earth’s history, following which global ecosystems were radically reorganised.

Cenozoic

Episode 106: Herpetology

Published on January 1st, 2020 | by Elsa Panciroli

Herpetology is the study of reptiles, amphibians and caecilians. This includes frogs, salamanders, crocodiles, snakes, lizards and tuatara, to name just a few. These cold-blooded tetrapods have an evolutionary history that reaches back to the Carboniferous. [&hellip... Read More


Cambrian

Episode 102: Small Shelly Fossils

Published on August 14th, 2019 | by David Marshall

Between the weird and wonderful rangeomorphs of the Ediacaran Period and the world-famous palaeocommunities of the Burgess Shale, the ‘Early Cambrian’ is host to a ‘waste basket’ of fossils untied by their small size and shelly [&hellip... Read More


Devonian

Episode 100: Tiktaalik

Published on May 24th, 2019 | by Vishruth Venkat

One of palaeontology‘s great themes of questioning is the rise of novelty: how new structures and functions arise in specific lineages. In this episode we speak with Neil Shubin, Professor of Organismal Biology at the University [&hellip... Read More


Cenozoic

Episode 96: Decapods

Published on January 1st, 2019 | by David Marshall

Decapods are a group of crustaceans that include such well-known families as crabs, lobsters and shrimp. Whilst crustaceans are known from as early as the Cambrian, we don’t see the first decapods until Devonian. Over the [&hellip... Read More


Carboniferous

Episode 94: Joggins Fossil Cliffs

Published on September 17th, 2018 | by Liz Martin-Silverstone

The Carboniferous was a time of huge swampy forests, big trees, and lots of life both on land and in the ocean. One world-renowned fossil site from approximately 300 million years ago is the Joggins Fossil [&hellip... Read More


Mesozoic

Episode 89: Teeth and herbivory in reptiles

Published on April 17th, 2018 | by Liz Martin-Silverstone

Tooth shape and arrangement is strongly linked with diet, and palaeontologists often use teeth to determine what kind of food an animal may have been eating. Carnivorous teeth are generally more simple, while herbivorous teeth are [&hellip... Read More


Carboniferous

Episode 86: Coal

Published on February 1st, 2018 | by David Marshall

The Carboniferous (Latin for ‘coal-bearing’) is a period of the Paleozoic Era named after the massive accumulations of coal that were formed globally during this time. These coal deposits were the fuel for the Industrial Revolution [&hellip... Read More


Blog

Get Well Soon, Titanosuchid

Published on December 31st, 2017 | by Chris Barker

Christmas was not particularly kind for one titanosuchid. Published on the day many were receiving gifts and well wishes, this Permian reptile was given the bad news that it was suffering from a bout of osteomyelitis, [&hellip... Read More


Cambrian

Episode 83: Gogo Fishes

Published on December 1st, 2017 | by Guest Blogger

Professor John Long is an early vertebrate researcher at Flinders University, Australia. He is most famous for his work on the three-dimentionally-preserved fish from the Gogo Formation, North West Australia. In this interview, Dr Tom Fletcher [&hellip... Read More


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