The shape of an animal is a reflection of the way it interacts with the physical world around it. By studying the mechanical laws which influence the evolution of modern animals, we can better understand the lives of their ancestors. Hydrodynamics examines the movement of water in contact with an organism, and can include everything from body shape to blood flow. In this episode we spoke to Dr Tom Fletcher, University of Leicester, about hydrodynamics…

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A team of researchers, led by the University of Bristol, has uncovered that ancient fossils, thought to be some of the world’s earliest examples of animal remains, could in fact belong to other groups such as algae. The Weng’an Biota is a fossil Konservat-Lagerstätte in South China that is around 600 million-years-old and provides an unparalleled snapshot of marine life during the interval in which molecular clocks estimate that animal groups had evolved. However, all…

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A team of researchers, led by the University of Bristol, has uncovered that ancient fossils, thought to be some of the world’s earliest examples of animal remains, could in fact belong to other groups such as algae. The Weng’an Biota is a fossil Konservat-Lagerstätte in South China that is around 600 million-years-old and provides an unparalleled snapshot of marine life during the interval in which molecular clocks estimate that animal groups had evolved. However, all…

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Palaeontology is a constantly evolving field; when new methods and techniques are invented, they allow us to revisit old fossils and test our previous observations and hypotheses. Recently, an exciting new method called ‘Laser-Simulated Fluorescence’ (LSF) has been gaining popularity in palaeontology and we speak to its inventor Tom Kaye, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, USA, during a visit to the University of Bristol, alongside Dr Michael Pittman, Research Assistant Professor, The University of Hong…

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We have a pretty good idea about how different dinosaur groups evolved, and how they are related (although anyone who has been following the recent dinosaur relationship shake-up knows this is not quite as clear as previously thought), but we don’t have a good idea of how their ancestors, early dinosauromorphs and other early archosaurs, evolved. When did these groups first appear? What lead to their diversification? In this episode, we speak with (recently promoted!)…

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