Could a pair of Quetzalcoatlus really harass a T. rex away from a carcass? And did dinosaurs have forked tongues like snakes and Komodo dragons?

In this Dinosaur Bite, Iszi Lawrence and Dr Dave Hone tackle both questions - starting with the Prehistoric Planet scene in which two enormous azhdarchid pterosaurs hassle a T. rex over a carcass.

Dave explains why the basic idea is perfectly plausible, drawing comparisons with modern animals such as hyenas, lions and vultures. But there's one part of the scene he isn't convinced by: with a huge carcass available, would the T. rex really bother wasting energy chasing the pterosaurs away? They then turn to the surprisingly complicated question of forked tongues. What does the fossil record tell us about dinosaur tongues? Why do snakes and some lizards have them? Could pterosaurs or marine reptiles have had them? And what can evolutionary relationships tell us when the soft tissue itself has completely disappeared?

Along the way, we get into how animals use smell, how sharks detect things in water, electroreception, and one of the fundamental problems of biology: where exactly do we draw the boundaries between species when evolution is a continuum?

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Terrible Lizards is a dinosaur podcast hosted by Iszi Lawrence and palaeontologist Dr Dave Hone. RAWR!

What can dinosaur footprints tell us that bones can't?

n this episode of Terrible Lizards, Iszi Lawrence and Dr Dave Hone talk to palaeontologist Brent Breithaupt about the science of trace fossils: the footprints, trackways, nests, bite marks and other evidence left behind by animals millions of years ago.

You can watch the episode on youtube here: https://youtu.be/puS0gkuTCHY

Brent has spent decades studying dinosaur and pterosaur footprints, particularly in Wyoming, and was at the forefront of using photogrammetry to turn enormous fossil trackways into detailed 3D digital records. He explains how scientists can use footprints to investigate how dinosaurs moved, how fast they travelled, how large they were and even how they may have interacted with one another.

We also discuss:

🦖 Dinosaur footprints: what they can tell us about individual animals and whole populations.

🦶 Trace fossils vs body fossils: why something an animal did can sometimes tell us more about its behaviour than its bones.

📸 Photogrammetry: how researchers went from stepladders, tripods and remote-control aircraft to modern drones and smartphones.

🎈 The Great Dinosaur Footprint Blimp: what happens when you try to photograph a tracksite from the air and the Wyoming wind picks up.

🦅 Pterosaur footprints: why they are relatively rare and why Wyoming has some particularly important tracksites.

💃 Dinosaur courtship: the evidence for theropods making display scrapes, and what modern birds can tell us about interpreting these mysterious traces.

🔬 Being sceptical about fossil behaviour: why good palaeontology means considering alternative explanations rather than simply finding evidence that supports your favourite idea.

🦴 Brent also talks about his work on Big Al, Walking with Dinosaurs, modern emus and rheas, and his attempts to track down historic dinosaur quarries from the 19th century. And, naturally, Iszi gets Brent, Dave and herself to make their best guesses at what a dinosaur might sound like while displaying at a lek. Brent Breithaupt is a palaeontologist and ichnologist whose research has included dinosaur and pterosaur trace fossils, fossil trackways, photogrammetry and the history of dinosaur discoveries in Wyoming.

Support Terrible Lizards and get bonus episodes and other extra content: https://patreon.com/terriblelizards

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Terrible Lizards is a dinosaur podcast hosted by Iszi Lawrence and palaeontologist Dr Dave Hone.

How did pterosaurs actually nest? Did they build colonies like seabirds, bury their soft-shelled eggs like crocodiles and turtles, or something stranger?

In this archive extract, Iszi Lawrence and Dr Dave Hone discuss pterosaur nesting behaviour, what we know about predators that might have eaten pterosaurs and their eggs, and why the fossil evidence is frustratingly limited. They also tackle what might have survived the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, why some small feathered dinosaurs might have been better placed to survive than larger species, and some of the most mysterious dinosaur fossils still waiting for more attention.

Plus: why Amargasaurus is such a strange sauropod, what "taphonomy" actually means, and whether the fossil record is missing tiny dinosaurs — including dinosaurs as small as hummingbirds. If you'd like to support the podcast and get bonus episodes every month, join us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Watch this episode on youtube: https://youtu.be/elbP8SlWJbk