Past Time

Of Collective Behavior and Trilobites Reading scientific papers can be a daunting prospect. Even the titles can contain layers of jargon. On Past Time, we work diligently to break down the barriers of science to make the discoveries of science for audiences of all ages. In this episode, we experiment with a new method: breaking […] The post Episode 34 – March of the Trilobites appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

PAST TIME RETURNS! After three and a half months of discovering how insanely busy a museum curator can be, I (Adam) am back to past times with a brand new episode of Past Time! Join me on a journey back to the Smithsonian Institution to learn about the whole history of sloths. We’ll also meet RYAN […] The post Episode 33 – The Story of the Sloth appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

Episode 32 – The Changing Face of Crocodiles INTRODUCTION TO GROWING UP – Every living thing grows up, and this episode of “Past Time” explores the evolution of the growing process. Specifically, we explore the evolution of growth in crocodiles, and how changes to the growing process at the earliest stages of crocodile development help […] The post Episode 32 – The Changing Face of Crocodiles appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

THE FIRST FROGS OF NORTH AMERICA Every discovery we make in natural history happens thanks to specimens. Fossil bones, shells, footprints, coprolites, tissue samples—even field notes and photograms—are the building blocks scientists use to tell the story of life on our planet. On Past Time, we talk a LOT about the contributions of museums and […] The post Episode 31 – The First Frogs of the Age of Dinosaurs! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

Meeting of the Minds There is no bigger paleontology conference for fans of dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals, birds, fishes, and reptiles than the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting. The 78th annual meeting just took place this October in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA and Matt, Adam, and Catherine were in attendance. They learned about a lot […] The post Episode 30 – SVP Recap, guest-starring I KNOW DINO appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

Ledumahadi and the first dinosaur giants The sauropod dinosaurs—the classic long-necks—included the largest land animal species that have ever lived. Throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous, multiple families of sauropods achieved body masses over 50 tons: greater than any modern elephant and even exceeding the colossal indricothere rhinoceroses. Despite their incredible sizes, the sauropod dinosaurs have […] The post Episode 29 – First of the Four-Footed Giant Dinosaurs! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

First Iteration I (Adam) am both proud and nervous to say that this is an atypical Past Time episode, as we’re not talking about a new discovery nor a real scientific topic; it is a recap/review of Jurassic World 2. However, I think it is worth addressing whether or not particular elements of new movies, […] The post Episode 28 – PAST TIME reviews Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

Eighty million years ago, a wildly ornamented species of horned dinosaur roamed the southern half of North America’s western landmass, Laramidia. In 2016, paleontologist Eric Lund and his colleagues named it Machairoceratops cronusi, and we fell in love with this ceratopsian from Utah with hooks over its frill. In 2017, the site where Machairoceratops was […] The post Episode 27 – Machairoceratops: An Extinct Horned Dinosaur Under Threat! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

Big bites come in small skulls This episode tells a story of one of Adam Pritchard’s favorite projects from Yale University, describing the skull of a teeny reptile from the early days of the Age of Reptiles. Hailing from the eastern coast of North America (present-day Connecticut), Colobops noviportensis had a skull only an inch […] The post Episode 26 – Colobops: the tiny reptile with a big bite! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

Masters of horns and teeth Throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods, dinosaurs were top dogs on every continent and in every sort of environment. The ceratosaurs were some of the classic predators that ruled the tops of the food chains for much of that time. Including classic predators such as Ceratosaurus, Carnotaurus, and Majungasaurus—as well as oddballs […] The post Episode 25 – Ceratosaurs: Story of a Predatory Dinosaur Dynasty! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

Egyptian paleontology has a long and storied history, although much of it is focused on discoveries from the Cenozoic Era. Incredible fossils of early whales, primates, and other mammals have been discovered in Egypt since the beginning of the twentieth century, work that continues to this day. However, fossils from the Age of Reptiles are […] The post Episode 24 – Dinosaurs and crocodiles in the Land Before Egypt! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

This episode was a blast to produce for a vertebrate scientist. I learned a ton about the echinoderms, the group of invertebrate animals to which sea stars, brittle stars, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and crinoids belong. Be prepared for more adventures with invertebrate animals in the future. Engineering Echinoderms with Elizabeth Clark! This episode would […] The post Episode 23: Meet the Echinoderms! Adventures with Ancient Sea Stars! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

Matheronodon is certainly a dinosaur worthy of a bigger bite. With proportionally giant teeth strikingly different from the standard-issue ornithopod dinosaur, it is certainly one of the most important dino discoveries out of Europe this year. Better yet, the original scientific paper by Pascal Godefroit and colleagues is free to read in the journal Scientific […] The post Episode 22: Matheronodon, a new dinosaur with a different kind of bite! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

The quest to recover ancient genetic material from extinct animals had its blockbuster moment when Jurassic Park came out. But where did the idea come from and who is trying to figure out if the science fiction of Jurassic Park can be science reality? We talk to Dr. Elizabeth Jones, a science historian at University […] The post Episode 21: New History of Ancient DNA appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

Hi all. Adam Pritchard here. I’ve been thinking about telling the story of my field experience in the Triassic-aged Chinle Formation of northern New Mexico for many years. The Hayden Quarry fossil site at Ghost Ranch has produced the best-preserved and most diverse record of American dinosaurs from the Triassic of North America, plus some […] The post Episode 20: Digging the Dawn of Dinosaurs – Paleontology at Ghost Ranch appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

A few weeks ago Past Time co-host Matt Borths published a study that identified a new species of now-extinct carnivorous mammal from Egypt. The animal was near the top of the African food chain when Africa was cut off from the other continents. It lived in the same swampy ecosystem that was home to our earliest […] The post Episode 19: Masrasector—Egypt’s Ancient Slicer! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

The post Episode 18: The Bird Brains and the Dinosaur Expert appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

Past Time is BACK! Matt and Adam have been traveling the world independently for some time, delving deeply into the history of life on the planet, but now they’re back to tell you all about what they’ve discovered!   In this episode, Matt interviews Adam about his research into the early days of the Age of […] The post Episode 17: Kingdom of the Monkey Lizard! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

The relationship between predator and prey is a primal one, and one that fires the curiosity of many fossil fans. We love paintings of Tyrannosaurus battling Triceratops or saber-toothed cats leaping onto the backs of ground sloths. And we can be pretty sure that those interactions happened based on TRACE FOSSILS, like tooth marks in […] The post A Food Chain in a Fossil: A snake skeleton with its prey still inside! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.

Growth is a universal facet of all organisms that have ever lived, but figuring out how old they grow isn’t always easy. A new study examined the growth in one of the biggest predatory fish in all the ocean, the Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus), revealing it to be the vertebrate species with the longest lifespan: nearly […] The post Grandma Sharkie: The Greenland Shark is the World’s Oldest Vertebrate Animal! appeared first on Past Time Paleo.