Pals in Palaeo

Adele’s joined by special guest Dr Aaron Camens from Flinders University to talk about the original drop bear and so-called marsupial lion, Thylacoleo carnifex!
We talk about combining fossils with footprints and bite marks to get the facts on the ankle-biting hunting tactics of this ambush predator, its weird opposable thumbs, and the roles of climate change and First Nations peoples in the megafauna mass extinction.
Plus a teaser for National Science Week involving ABC Catalyst with mechanical bite force experiments, honourable mentions for Microleo, and the parallels between panic buying toilet paper and competitive exclusion.
Random Fossil Fact:
The Natural History Museum at South Kensington
Architect Alfred Waterhouse and his iconic Natural History Museum building
Thylacoleo
Australian Museum - Thylacoleo carnifex
Queensland Museum - Thylacoleo sp.

This episode is brought to you by Dinosaur Trips! Explore the world and see the best museums, meet experts and even dig up real dinosaurs. For more info visit dinosaurtrips.com and email [email protected] about the Badlands and Beyond Trip.

Dinosaur Trips
It's been 66 million years. Why wait any longer? Join an upcoming trip!

Pals in Palaeo @palsinpalaeo
Host: Adele Pentland @palaeodel
Online Store
Transcripts
The Pals in Palaeo Cover Art
Jenny Zhao Design @jennyzdesign
Crumpet Club House@crumpetclubhouse

The Pals in Palaeo Theme Music
Hello Kelly @hellokellymusic

Podcast Producer + Editor
Jean-César Puechmarin @cesar_on_safari
Podcast Editor
François "Francy" Goudreault @hellofrancy

Meet Koolasuchus cleelandi, a giant amphibian from the Cretaceous of Victoria, Australia (~125 million years ago) with the body of a salamander and a head as big as a wheelie bin lid. An animal that by all rights, SHOULD have gone extinct millions of years ago and chosen by the people as the state fossil emblem for Victoria.
We hear from two of the brilliant paleontologists who worked on the holotype, fossil preparator Lesley Kool and prospector Mike cleeland.
We deviate and also talk red and white blood-cell like structures in the Jurassic ichthyosaur Stenopterygius.
Links:Random Fossil Fact
Palaeobiology of red and white blood cell-like structures, collagen and cholesterol in an ichthyosaur bone

Koolasuchus
The last last labyrinthodonts?
Palaeobiogeography of Australian fossil amphibians
Victoria's new state fossil emblem: Koolasuchus cleelandi
Koolasuchus cleelandi: Cool Cretaceous monster amphibian
Meet Koolasuchus cleelandi, the people's choice as Victoria's official fossil emblem

Dinosaurs of Darkness: In Search of the Lost Polar World – by Thomas H. Rich & Patricia Vickers-Rich

This episode is brought to you by Dinosaur Trips! Explore the world and see the best museums, meet experts and even dig up real dinosaurs. For more info visit dinosaurtrips.com and email [email protected] about the Badlands and Beyond Trip.

Dinosaur Trips
It's been 66 million years. Why wait any longer? Join an upcoming trip!

Pals in Palaeo @palsinpalaeo
Host: Adele Pentland @palaeodel
Online Store
Transcripts
The Pals in Palaeo Cover Art
Jenny Zhao Design @jennyzdesign
Crumpet Club House@crumpetclubhouse

The Pals in Palaeo Theme Music
Hello Kelly @hellokellymusic

Podcast Producer + Editor
Jean-César Puechmarin @cesar_on_safari
Podcast Editor
François "Francy" Goudreault @hellofrancy

Introducing VAMP! The Virtual Australian Museum of Palaeontology is a digital collection spanning 600 million years of evolution. On this episode, Adele has a yarn with the three palaeontologists behind VAMP: Dr Aaron Camens, Dr Alice Clement and PhD candidate Jacob van Zoelen.
VAMP includes Earth's earliest multicellular organisms, giant marsupials, fossil footprints and everything in between.
It's a place where anyone, including palaeontologists and members of the public can check out high-resolution 3D scans of Australian fossils.
VAMP is led by Flinders University, in collaboration with the South Australian Museum (SAM), Western Australian Museum (WAM), and Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT).
Find our guests on Twitter:
Dr Aaron Camens @DiprotoRon
Dr Alice Clement @DrAliceClement
Jacob van Zoelen @Zoelenotherium
and VAMP @VAMP_Palaeo
Visit the VAMP website and Explore Australian fossils in 3D

This episode is brought to you by Dinosaur Trips! Explore the world and see the best museums, meet experts and even dig up real dinosaurs. For more info visit dinosaurtrips.com and email [email protected] about the Badlands and Beyond Trip.

Dinosaur Trips
It's been 66 million years. Why wait any longer? Join an upcoming trip!

Pals in Palaeo @palsinpalaeo
Host: Adele Pentland @palaeodel
Online Store
Transcripts
The Pals in Palaeo Cover Art
Jenny Zhao Design @jennyzdesign
Crumpet Club House@crumpetclubhouse

The Pals in Palaeo Theme Music
Hello Kelly @hellokellymusic

Podcast Producer + Editor
Jean-César Puechmarin @cesar_on_safari
Podcast Editor
François "Francy" Goudreault @hellofrancy

Adele bounces off ideas with Dr Isaac Kerr to talk about extinct kangaroos! Isaac kicks things off by telling us about trips to New Guinea, the Smithsonian, American Natural History Museum and the NHM, photographing specimens and 3D scanning. We then hop into Protemnodon, discussing three new species, fieldwork in Lake Callabonna, and why fossil hunting is like fishing crossed with Christmas.
Isaac's Monograph
Systematics and palaeobiology of kangaroos of the late Cenozoic genus Protemnodon (Marsupialia, Macropodidae)
Flinders University
Giant kangaroos bounce back from the past
The Conversation
We found three new species of extinct giant kangaroo – and we don’t know why they died out when their cousins survived
ABC News
Flinders University researchers identify three new species of extinct kangaroo

This episode is brought to you by Dinosaur Trips! Explore the world and see the best museums, meet experts and even dig up real dinosaurs. For more info visit dinosaurtrips.com and email [email protected] about the Badlands and Beyond Trip.

Dinosaur Trips
It's been 66 million years. Why wait any longer? Join an upcoming trip!

Pals in Palaeo @palsinpalaeo
Host: Adele Pentland @palaeodel
Online Store
Transcripts
The Pals in Palaeo Cover Art
Jenny Zhao Design @jennyzdesign
Crumpet Club House@crumpetclubhouse

The Pals in Palaeo Theme Music
Hello Kelly @hellokellymusic

Podcast Producer + Editor
Jean-César Puechmarin @cesar_on_safari
Podcast Editor
François "Francy" Goudreault @hellofrancy

Join Adele and special guest museum curator Kevin Petersen for a chat about Australia's newest pterosaur, Haliskia! Kev takes us through the discovery and preparation of the specimen, whilst Adele tackles the form, function and family grouping of this new species.
Plus why Kevin loves turtle fossils, and pterosaurs puking pellets.
Haliskia
100-million-year-old fossil find reveals huge flying reptile that patrolled Australia’s inland sea
Haliskia peterseni, a new anhanguerian pterosaur from the late Early Cretaceous of Australia
Australian Geographic
100-million-year-old fossil find reveals huge flying reptile that patrolled Australia’s inland sea
CNN
New pterosaur species discovered by Australian farmer
ABC
New species of flying pterosaur reptile discovered in outback Queensland fossil dig
New Scientist
Australian pterosaur had a huge tongue to help gulp down prey
Cosmos Magazine
Most complete Australian pterosaur specimen, new species, found in Queensland
Links:
Random Fossil Fact
Fossils reveal that pterosaurs puked pelletsLike Owls, Some Prehistoric Flying Reptiles May Have Regurgitated Pellets
Two emetolite-pterosaur associations from the Late Jurassic of China: showing the first evidence for antiperistalsis in pterosaurs

Pals in Palaeo @palsinpalaeo
Host: Adele Pentland @palaeodel
Online Store
Transcripts
The Pals in Palaeo Cover Art
Jenny Zhao Design @jennyzdesign
Crumpet Club House@crumpetclubhouse

The Pals in Palaeo Theme Music
Hello Kelly @hellokellymusic

Podcast Producer + Editor
Jean-César Puechmarin @cesar_on_safari
Podcast Editor
François "Francy" Goudreault @hellofrancy