Palaeocast

Every palaeontologist needs to put their feet up once in a while, and what better place to do so that the Best Western Denver Southwest? This hotel is located just a stone's-throw away from Dinosaur …

Fossils, at the best of times, are difficult to interpret. Palaeontologists attempt to reconstruct organisms from what little remains are left. This can be relatively simple for groups that we are fa…

Sexual selection is responsible for much of the astounding diversity in morphology and behaviour that we can see in animals and plants today, but how can we reliably recognise it in the fossil record…

The first animals came onto land sometime before 425 Ma. These early colonizers were members of a group called the arthropods - probably early relatives of the millipedes first. However, early land a…

The 16th to the 18th December 2012 saw University College Dublin host  The Palaeontological Association (PalAss) 56th annual general meeting. Palaeocast were present at the conference for quite a few…

The Mesozoic Era saw the spectacular rise and fall of many groups, particularly in terrestrial vertebrates. These include birds, squamates, crocodiles, and pterosaurs, who wove a complex tapestry of …

We can observe colour to be highly important for animals today. It can be used for many different purposes, including camouflage and signalling, and produced by many different methods. What is true o…

Vertebrates are one of the most diverse and successful groups of animals on the planet.  Modern vertebrates come in an astounding array of sizes and shapes and can be found anywhere from the deepest …

The biota of the Ediacaran period (635 - 541 ma) is of critical importance to our understanding of the origin of animals because it immediately precedes the Cambrian fauna, from which all subsequent …

We interview Professor William Stein of Binghamton University about the world's first forets at Gilboa, NY, USA. We talk through the history of the research at this famous locality covering the destr…

We got a chance to talk to Dr. George Poinar of Oregon State University about his work in amber. We discuss what it is and how it forms, but also talk about the organisms that are preserved within an…