Palaeocast

Grassy biomes, including grasslands, savannahs and crops, cover over 40% of all land on Earth. They play a significant role in carbon and silica cycles and have a large impact upon the climate. Grass…

Determining the origin of teeth in vertebrates is an incredibly significant but notoriously difficult problem within palaeontology. Teeth didn’t evolve in the mouths of our ancestors, but are first s…

Determining the origin of teeth in vertebrates is an incredibly significant but notoriously difficult problem within palaeontology. Teeth didn't evolve in the mouths of our ancestors, but are first …

Ants are a hugely successful family of eusocial insects with over 14,000 modern species described. They are known from every continent except Antarctica and show a wide range of ecologies. Whilst man…

Ants are a hugely successful family of eusocial insects with over 14,000 modern species described. They are known from every continent except Antarctica and show a wide range of ecologies. Whilst man…

An ecosystem can be described as all the interactions that occur between organisms and their physical environment. The processes acting within an ecosystem operate on a wide range of spatial and temp…

Found in the fossil record between the Jurassic and the middle Miocene, Notosuchia was a highly diverse and strange group of crocodylomorphs, most notable for their terrestrial lifestyle.

Joining us …

The field of evolutionary biology has been greatly influenced by the development of modern genetic methodology. The understanding of genes, genomes and the molecular mechanisms key to life on Earth …

In 12 years of podcasting, we have never actually taken the time to address the fundamentals of our field. Such questions could include: what is palaeontology, what is a fossil, how does one become …

It's been two centuries since the first dinosaur, Megalosaurus, was named by William Buckland and to commemorate the date, the Natural History Museum hosted '200 Years of Dinosaurs: Their Rise, Fall…

The Middle Jurassic is incredibly important to our understanding of pterosaur evolution; however, the remarkable rarity and incompleteness of Middle Jurassic pterosaurs has long hampered scientific…

Originally mounted in 1907, the Carnegie specimen is the best example of the sauropod dinosaur Diplodocus, and perhaps the most famous dinosaur skeleton in the world. Casts of the specimen, includin…

LOOP 8.4: LOOP Showrunner Dan Tapster returns to give a retrospective on the series and its production. We look at went well and address criticisms; is it possible to keep everyone happy? We finish t…

LOOP 8.3: Episode 8’s producer, Sophie Lanfear, joins us again to describe how difficult it was to wrap the series up, having to balance telling the story of the last ice age with conveying the messa…

LOOP 8.2: Prof. Danielle Schreve, Royal Holloway University of London, joins us to cover the last 2 million years of Earth’s history. We explore the periodicity of glacials and interglacials and the …

LOOP 8.1: Dave and Tom introduce episode 8 and round of this special series on Life On Our Planet. We talk about our favourite scenes and reflect on our time working on the documentary and how our pe…

LOOP 7.3: We’re taken into the field to film snow leopards by episode 7’s Assistant Producer, Darren Williams. He reveals how difficult it is to get just a few minutes of video, both logistically and…

LOOP 7.2: Prof. Christine Janis, University of Bristol, outlines mammalian evolution and focusses on the global events that governs their radiation. We look at why mammals survived the K-Pg mass exti…

LOOP 7.1: In the introduction to episode 7, Dave and Tom just about keep it together whilst reflecting on the most emotional scene of the show. We also celebrate the inclusion of the Antarctic Circum…