The Common Descent Podcast

The PETM has been called the largest natural climate change event of the Cenozoic Era. It marks the transition from the ecosystems of the Paleocene to the more familiar world of the Eocene and is thu…

The word parasite doesn’t typically invoke a lot of happy thoughts for us humans, but as far as life on Earth is concerned, parasitism is a path to success. As we discuss in this episode, an incredib…

Is there a group of dinosaurs more iconic than sauropods? Famous for their ridiculously long necks, their global success, their astounding diversity, and of course for their unparalleled size, saurop…

We’ve released 100 episodes of the podcast! Plus, more than 50 side episodes, a handful of YouTube videos, some live shows … it’s been quite a journey. In this episode, we take some time to look back…

One hundred episodes is kind of a big deal, so we figured we’d pick a big deal kind of topic, and it doesn’t get much bigger than this.

As far as we can tell, all life on Earth is descended from a co…

Insects must be among the most impressive animals in Earth history. For hundreds of millions of years, they have been some of the most significant animals on land in terms of their abundance, diversi…

Welcome ... to Spookulative Evolution.

It’s October once again and time for Spook-E! Each episode throughout this month, we’re choosing a monster and discussing how it – or something like – might evo…

Welcome ... to Spookulative Evolution.

It’s October once again and time for Spook-E! Each episode throughout this month, we’re choosing a monster and discussing how it – or something like – might evo…

When we study life, past or present, we talk a lot about species, their evolution, their diversity, their extinction, and more. But we don’t often slow down to discuss what we really mean by that. Wh…

Welcome ... to Spookulative Evolution.

It’s October once again and time for Spook-E! Each episode throughout this month, we’re choosing a monster and discussing how it – or something like – might evo…

Welcome ... to Spookulative Evolution.

It’s October once again and time for Spook-E! Each episode throughout this month, we’re choosing a monster and discussing how it – or something like – might evo…

Okay, that’s not a great title. More accurately, we’re discussing toxins, the substances that organisms produce for chemical defense or attack against each other. Toxins are found in practically all …

Marsupials are like alternate-reality mammals. Everything about them, from their skeletons to their reproductive strategies, is just a bit strange – from the perspective of us placental mammals, that…

This episode marks the end of our extinction series, but on the bright side, Aly’s here!

Most of the extinction events we discuss are very animal-focused, but the end of the Carboniferous Period feat…

Dogs are among the most diverse and successful mammalian predators on the planet, from widespread wild predators like wolves to the most iconic domestic species of all time in our own homes. This epi…

Cats are among the most diverse and successful mammalian predators on the planet, from lions on the savanna to ocelots in the jungle to domestic cats in homes and homepages worldwide. This episode, w…

Everybody starts somewhere, and most animals start inside an egg! Eggs are about as old and as varied as animal life itself, and when they show up in the fossil record, they can be very telling. In t…

Roughly nine out of ten living amphibian species are frogs. They’re incredibly diverse and successful, and they have been since the Jurassic Period. But the origins of frogs and their fellow modern a…

"Living fossils" aren't really a thing, not the way they're typically talked about anyway, and the term can be a source of debate among scientists and science communicators. In this episode, we talk …

In the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia sits one of the most important, well-studied, and scientifically influential fossil sites in the world. The Burgess Shale not only provides us a glimpse in…