I Don't Know About That - Dinosaurs

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

In this episode, the team discusses dinosaurs with Museum Educator and Children's Programmer, Joanna Northover. Follow Joanna on Tiktok @Joannasaurus ! Our merch store is now live! Go to idontknowaboutthat.com for shirts, hoodies, mugs, and more! Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/IDKAT for ad free episodes, bonus episodes, and more exclusive perks! Tiers start at just $2! Go to JimJefferies.com to buy tickets to Jim's upcoming tour, The Moist Tour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Okay. Hands. Feet. Which one is a German name? You might find out. And I don't know about that. With Hans Jeffrey. You don't know?

Feet Hitler? Yeah, Feet Hitler. Fraulein Feet. Hans Christian Andersen. He was not German. But his name's Hans. Yeah, but a European, but he was Danish, wasn't he?

Hans Christian Andersen. I'm not Danish. Copenhagen. We went and saw the Hans crew. I got a 411 in Copenhagen, and if I was allowed to. That was a great city. Great city. Smashing city. Copenhagen. We went and saw the hands- I got a 411 in Copenhagen, and if I was allowed to. That was a great city. Great city.

Smashed city. Good food. I don't know. Just like visa apartments. Women with nice asses, man. A lot of bike riding. Yeah, I rode a bike around there. Me and Amos rode around the city on a bike. Hans Christian Andersen.

The little mermaid statue. It's got it all. We went to Christiana. Remember that? It's like a place where weed's legal in the middle there. I don't know if you remember the podcast, but it's the number one dairy place on earth. They love dairy.

Oh, yeah. Good Paul. I forgot about that. I went to a Michelin star that was all dairy on top of dairy. Did you bring your lactaid? I did. I did. I just did some damage in your toilet, Jack.

I didn't bring it today. I felt it quick. I was wondering what that was. Yeah. The only problem with any of those Norwegian areas is when they say, oh, yeah, it's a king bed, and then it's those two beds smushed together. Yeah, the Europeans don't know what they're doing with beds. Wait, really?

Oh, yeah, all over the place. Oh, and if you try to do the Contiki tour travel, they just go, you'll be sharing a room with someone else. You're doing it on the cheap. You know what I mean? And the person you're sharing with is just a double bed, sharing it with a stranger. Yeah.

You're like goodnight mate yeah they just shoved two beds together and then there's the thing and they're like king bed kings

kings like two beds king of the castle I did it with my dad when we went to Germany and we shared a bed and my dad as usual he brings two pairs of underwear

two pairs of socks two t-shirts two pairs of shorts and he just washes an outfit there's an outfit drying an outfit being worn and that's all my dad will have for weeks on end. God, that's simple. Two pairs of underwear. He's a fucking genius. Well, where does he wash them? Just like in the sink? Yeah. Bar of soap. With a bar of soap. Yeah. Washes them under the tub, hangs them up. They dry,

and then that's his next outfit. The other one, they're on a constant rotation. Wait, even when he comes to visit you? Oh, when he comes to visit, he probably brings four pairs of underwear, like when he's here for months. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He really lets it live. Yeah, but when he's traveling on the road, he travels very light, my father.

He's very proud of how little luggage he's got. Isn't that one of the life hacks you brought up? Kind of like showering with your clothes or whatever? You can't shower with your clothes on, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but Gary doesn't, yeah, he doesn't fuck around. My college roommate must have been on the gary uh idea train because she used to have sex while i was in the same room and then hang her wet sex underwear in our shared closet to dry and you acted like you're asleep

i was trying to sleep i mean where was i where was i supposed to go? I would just put my headphones on and just curl up in a ball. Dude, it's so bad. You've got some dates coming up this weekend. I do. Where am I? Baltimore. Baltimore. Yeah, home of the Wire.

And the Ravens. Greenville. Home of Rory Scoville, the comedian. Scoville. Yeah, I played golf with him the the comedian. Scoville. Scoville. Yeah, I played golf with him the other day. I said Scoville. Nice guy. Nice guy.

My wife's favorite TV show is Physical, and he's fantastic in that show. He was also very funny on the Jim Jefferies show. Very funny on the Jim Jefferies show. It was one of the few times I was with a celebrity, and I rang up my wife so she could get excited, and she was like, oh, wow. She's a big fan? Big fan of Physical. That's her favorite show, and she loves it. And so he plays the husband. He's pretty good at golf, huh? He's a was like, oh, wow. She's a big fan. Big fan of physical. That's her favorite show.

And she loves it. And so he plays the husband. He's pretty good at golf, huh? He's a very good golfer. Yeah. Well, in comparison to me, he's an excellent golfer. All right. So you're going to be there in the home of Roy Scoble in Greenville,

South Carolina. And then June 2nd. That's May 20th. Baltimore, May 21st. Greenville, South Carolina. Then June 2nd, Winnipeg. June 3rd. Winnipeg, Loser Pig. It's, South Carolina. Then June 2nd. Winnipeg. June 3rd. Winnipeg, Lusopeg.

It's all fine with me. June 3rd. June 3rd. Saskatoon. Regina. Saskatoon. That's how you should have done it. Schmigadoon.

Okay. And then Australia. I'm looking forward to this Australian tour. I've been counting the days, as I do with every day. Got a lot of cities in Australia. I've built this calendar system. You are going to be busy, as they say in Australia. Yeah, I'm going to be doing a lot of gigs in Australia.

I'm bringing the whole fam. Start with Wollongong. Wollongong. We're doing a big arena in Wollongong, and we're doing a little private gig in a place in Taramara. So a little tiny secret gig. Wollongong, Newcastle, Canberra, Canberra, Hobart,

Sydney, Brisbane, Brisbane, Brisbane, Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Adelaide, Adelaide, Perth, Perth, Melbourne, Melbourne, Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland. Jack's having a seizure. Yeah, we've really milked the Australasia.

We're going down there. We're going to crush the shit out of the cunt. That should have been the tour name. I've got a good show for you. No, the Australian tour's got a good name. Jim Jefferies Australian Tour. 2022. 2022.

And you have a month off and then you're in Hawaii. Hawaii. Hawaii. I'm doing Hawaii. And then I've got to like. Lots of gigs. I'm doing Jefferies.com. I'm going on a wedding in Britain. I'm traveling. I've got to like... Lots of gigs. I'm doing Jeffries.com. I'm going on a wedding in Britain.

I'm traveling. I'm a traveling man. You know, I was thinking we should add to the merch just a Jim Jeffries poo on a stick tour shirt so that you can still feel like you had your poo on a stick. Poo on a stick. We should do that. He's just telling me poo on a stick tour.

I think I'm going to ask the graphic designer to add that to our merch. I look back on that. People would have liked the poo on the stick tour. Yes. Of course they would. As much as they'd like moist. Poo on a stick tour. They've nothing to do with the jokes you're telling.

Think about, you know, right now it says moist behind you. You could have a little stick with some poo on it. Yeah, that's good. Because that's moist. Probably. No, I just have poo, poo, poo when they're coming out. And then as I walked out on stage, it would go on a stick. That's my intro song.

It is. Poo, poo. Are you ready to get pooed? Who wants a poo on a stick? Who brought that stick? Could be a lot. I don't know. We're watching a screen there, and it's got text messages on it.

And one of them is from my wife and you haven't opened it up there, Jack. Oh. Okay. I just forward you an email from them. Not attentive at all. What salacious thing are you and my wife texting about? So I can ship back that mattress that's in my garage. Oh, yeah.

That's a good one. Yeah. I keep it in unread so I make sure I remember. Yeah, good. Thanks for that, Jack. Glad you're getting that done. The Patreon, still going. Yeah.

Still going. Still going strong. Look, you know. Don't listen to the last episode. It wasn't our best work, but there's other ones. There's back catalog there and you can really get into it. I'm saying the next one we record, I told you, you got to bring shoes. You got to bring shorts. We're going to run. You got to limber up. Yeah. I don't need to limber up. Well, that's going to be part of it. I'm saying the next one we record, I told you, you got to bring shoes. You got to bring shorts. We're going to run. You got to limber up.

I don't need to limber up. Well, that's going to be part of it. Limbering. It's not a race against each other. It's a race against the clock. That's life. That's what sounds like a tag for an action movie. It's not a race against each other. It's a race against the clock. About two blokes who are runners who in the second world war and they have to get to Hitler. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd watch that. So, and Hitler's in Switzerland where they're making clocks. Yes. Oh, you mean feed Hitler? Yes.

Yeah. Feed Hitler. Yeah. Okay. Enhance Christian. They're like a real odd couple, buddy cop type of situation. Adult Hitler and child Hitler

Ah yeah juvenile Hitler I'll tell you how he did it You never know how Hitler actually did it Everybody put their hands up Put their hands up That's how he got them all to do the salute We don't know what he's saying because he's saying it in German Put your hand up

Follow us on our Follow us on Instagram IDCat Podcast and also the the store, right, Kelly? Yeah, idontknowaboutthat.com, and then our Patreon is patreon.com slash IDCat. The shit I just did in your house, Jack, I don't think I got all of it. I think it was a three-quarter. You got up and you go, I'm going to let her rip. I did.

He was in there a long time. Yeah, you were in there for a really long time. Oh, that's at home. I spent days. I was just He was in there a long time. Yeah, he was in there for a really long time. Oh, that's at home. I spent days. Just going to try and introduce our guest. My wife doesn't understand because she shits so efficiently, my wife. A nice guest. Yeah, I think women are better at shitting efficiently.

We got things to do. It's because you can't read. I was going to say, here's our guest. I can't read. Women. I was going to introduce our guest. How many ad reads have I sat through? We're not going to do it now. I said, that's a close enough word. We're certainly not going to have to just introduce our guest How many ad reads have I said through? We're not going to do it now

That's a close enough word We're certainly not going to have to just introduce the guest after all that Oh we have a guest? Yeah we're going to have a guest The episode's not about shit I was trying to say Oh they're here Alright let's get rolling

Please welcome our guest Joanna Northover G'day Joanna now it's time to play. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Judging a book by its cover.

I do just love that our guests can never hear that. And so when you sing along, I'm sure it's really unnerving. Well, Joanna is either sitting in front of a child's painting or a priceless piece of art. I can't decide which it will be. So that's all. She'll be like, I worked for days on that. Okay, so is it something to do with children, Joanna?

Well, I mean, it can be. No, no, no. Children usually are very interested in this. Children are interested in it. Yeah. Has it got something to do with art? No. Children are interested.

I mean, it can, I guess, but no. You're not helping. Is it science-based? Yes. Is it dinosaurs? Yes. How do you get that one? Children are interested in dinosaurs, man.

Holy shit. That was incredible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just know because I saw her going, oh, you can paint dinosaurs. Oh, there's science involved. I didn't see what she was thinking. I can't. I didn't cheat.

It's about dinosaurs, man. Wow. Joanna Northover has a bachelor's and master's degree in paleontology through the earth sciences department at Carleton University in Ottawa and has participated in field work in the high Arctic as part of her master's research with the Canadian museum of nature. After graduation, Joanna became a science educator at the Royal Tyrell museum of paleontology.

And you can find her on Tik TOK, educating people about fossils and paleontology at Joanna Soros, J O A N N A S A U R U SS-A-U-R-U-S. There you go. You're like Ross from Friends. Oh, yeah, I get that a lot. Is he a popular person in your world where you go, oh, it's good he's flying the flag?

Well, you know, let me just say the first time somebody said I was like Ross from Friends, I actually hadn't seen Friends, so I had no idea what they were talking about. They're like, oh, you're like Ross. And I'm like, who's Ross? Do I know him? Like, who's this guy? But I have watched some Friends since then. And yeah, no. I mean, it's not.

He's not a nice... I know, it's not accurate. No, not even about that. I mean, he's not like the nicest dude. Oh, he's lovely, Ross. Nobody likes Ross. I like Ross. Ross is like everybody's least favorite character. I like Ross.

I remember I had a friend recently who had never seen Friends, actually a friend of my wife's, and she was like, I've never seen Friends. And I tried to explain it to her. And I said, it's like an actor and a paleontologist and a chef that all hang out together. And I was like, this sounds like a very weird show. It's a very normal show. It's a very normal show.

It's a very normal show. But if you break it down, it sounds odd. I mean, he has a lot of time on his hands considering, like, what his supposed job is. All of them do. Monica was a chef. They worked, like, 12-hour days, and she was home all the time just dicking about.

Yeah. All right, cool. I had some jokes too. I was going to give you some hints. I was going to say, what's this one? Why can't you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom? Because he is silent.

I know, I just gave it away. What do you call the dog of a dinosaur with one eye? I think he saw us. I don't think he saw us. Do you think he saw us with one eye? I think he saw us. I don't think he saw us. Do you think he saw us, Rex? Do you think he saw us, Rex? Oh, that's a classic, Jurassic Park.

Yeah, you got that from Jurassic Park. I got that from the internet. Ah, Jurassic Park, man. That's a solid movie. I should have bring out more of them. Instead of just making the one. Okay, Joanna, I'm going to ask Jim a series of questions on dinosaurs. And at the end of him answering these questions,

you're going to grade him on his accuracy. Zero through 10, 10's the best. And Kelly's going to grade him on confidence. I'm going to grade him on et cetera. 21 through 30, dynamite. Yeah. That's good. 11 through 20, megasaurus.

That's me. Zero through 10, Megasaurus that's me 0 through 10, Sorluser that one doesn't sound like a dinosaur dinosaur Sorluser you've done better yeah, I've done worse before we get into the questions

we're going to take a quick break for the ads and we're back alright, here we go I'm going to ask Jim the questions for the ads. Dot E-K. And we're back. Hey. All right. Here we go. I'm going to ask Jim the questions. Joanne, after you listen to his answers, we'll repeat the answers for you if you don't remember. What are dinosaurs, Jim?

Dinosaurs are prehistoric creatures that were here before mankind was. They lived millions of years ago on this planet, and we know they existed because of the fossils that they have left in the ground. What does the word dinosaur mean uh dino meaning uh oh fuck me dino dino dino's so uh old lizard we get pie Old lizard? Old lizard. Okay. When did they exist? Well, they went through different, you know, the Jurassic period was different from another period to another period. Millions of years ago.

What, the year? How many millions of years ago? Three, 300 million years ago. 300 million, okay. Why were dinosaurs so big? Because of the movie, really. That's where they got the most popular. Social media.

No, because what happened was you had big ones. They had no arms and feet. They had to feed from the top of the branches. You had other ones that needed to, you know, they were just big, man. How did dinosaurs evolve? Same way we evolved. There would have been like a tadpole that went thing, and then it grew legs, and then it went bigger,

and then just like all evolution, it would have just taken a very long time. Are the movie TV book versions fairly accurate? Like, do you know what, what did they look like? No one knows for sure. See, they reckon that all the things like the raptors and stuff are closer to birds and maybe they even had feathers on them rather than having, you know, no one knows what colour they were. This is all open to interpretation. They could have meowed like a cat, but we just assume

because they've got a big sort of head that they would have gone roar, but we don't actually know that for sure. I'm sure Joanna's going to tell us that we do, but you don't, Joanna. You don't, right? I wouldn't assume that's what she's going to tell you. We do a pre-interview with her. I already know what she's going to tell us that we do, but you don't, Joanna. You don't. I wouldn't assume that's what she's going to tell you. We do a pre-interview with her. I already know what she's going to tell you. We have some preconceived notions on what they're like, but we can never be for sure just going off the bones. How did dinosaurs have sex? Well, it depends what dinosaurs. There was many different breeds of dinosaurs. There would have been egg-laying

dinosaurs. T-Rex. Let's go with a T-Rex. Not like the actual physical act. I reckon there's penises and a penis goes into a vagina. Do I have to explain this to you again? Oh, what, like missionary position? Like how they're doing? No, they would have gone from behind. Would have gone from behind, tackled them, got into it.

Okay. How did they birth offspring and take care of their young? I believe most of it's got to do with eggs. And then it would be like any egg-bearing animal. They would bring food back to the nest, and then the animal would eat from, maybe they would chew up the food, spit it into their mouth. But it would depend on dinosaur to dinosaur. We've still got dinosaurs. Give me some examples.

We've got dinosaurs today. We've still got crocodiles. Crocodiles are still characterized as dinosaurs, and they, you know, egg-laying animal. And, you know, laying animal and you know they like any animal they they protect their young until they're strong enough to be out on their own and the animals go out on their own are dinosaurs smart or were they once again we don't know but we know we can know things like from where the bones apparently if they they hunted in packs or

whether they were herbivores omnivores or carnivores and you know things like that but that doesn't mean they're smart but the movies would have you think that some of them are smart and some of them are dumb but if i've learned anything from movies the bigger the animal the dumber it is right it's always like if you watch like lord of the rings or something there's always raw star wars they're always riding on top of an animal it's like like that one the small person's on the back. Then you meet Yoda. He's fucking a foot tall and he's a genius.

The bigger the animal, the dumber it is. You've never had even, there's no film with a giant animal that's just like, hey, how is everyone? Sorry I'm late. Well, this is a great cup of tea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're never using fine crockery. Where do dinosaurs live? All over the world,

man. But the world, the land was in different areas at different time. They found like stuff in the middle of Australia that will probably see animals. And there's obviously no water there now. They found great big prehistoric kangaroos, historic uh kangaroos big fucking kangaroos man they found those so they would have lived in australia but um yeah all over the planet you know i think i think they've found fossils in the in the polar caps as well and stuff i'm not 100 sure on that but i'm just talking why did dinosaurs go extinct and when okay this is okay

so there's a meteorite there's the meteorite theory which is probably the most accurate that a meteorite came causing an ice age and causing the planet to shift and for everything to freeze over like the movie ice age but what i was taught in school as a child which seems madness now but this is what they taught in the australian school system was uh the herbivores ate all the plants the carnivores ate all the herbivores, and they just ran out of food. That is, swear to God, what the Australian school system in the early 80s were teaching us. Dang. What is the study of fossils called? Paleontology, but that's

the study of dinosaurs. I would say paleontology. What was the first dinosaur uh the first time what the first fossil we found or the first dinosaur to live first dinosaur no there would have been a i'll say it was a turtle turtle dinosaur yeah turtle turtle soar turtle soars okay what was a typical lifespan of a dinosaur well see it's the same thing it's like a typical lifespan of a like different animals like see, it's the same thing. It's like a typical lifespan of a, like different animals, like the pterodactyls might've had a different. Brontosaurus.

Brontosaurus. Brontosaurus lived for 45 years. T-Rex. T-Rex was only lived for 27 years. Lived fast, die young. What about a raptor? Raptor was even younger because their hearts were beating too fast because they're always running.

They never chilled. Stegosaurus. Stegosaurus is an 80-year-old. 80-year-old? 80s. What about a Triceratops? Triceratops, everyone's favorite dinosaur from all the kids. Yeah, it's everyone's favorite dinosaur.

I like the Stegosaurus. The Triceratops. It's one of those ones. I'll say that one lived to 62. Okay. Joanna, how did Jim do on his knowledge of dinosaurs? Yours are 10, 10's the best. Well, I mean, it's very, honestly, it's hard to grade me.

I'm too nice. Cause he said a lot of things that were correct. And then he said some things that were extremely wrong. So I don't really know how to grade it. It doesn't matter. They're not here anymore. You're offending the dinosaurs. Well, so I'm going to give him, I'm going to give him like,

I'm going to say, oh, it's so hard. I'm waffling. Should I give you a higher score? Maybe I'll give you a 6.5. I'll give you a 6.5. I've never been into dinosaurs, man. You've never been into dinosaurs. You did okay. As a kid, I was never crazy about them, but other people5. I've never been into dinosaurs, man. You've never been into dinosaurs. You did okay.

As a kid, I was never crazy about them, but other people were. How do you do on confidence, Kelly? I was going to give him a seven on confidence, but an extra three points for the fact that he got dinosaurs so quickly. Yeah, so 10, 16.5. I'm going to give you a 45. You're a Megasaur. No, you're a Dino-mite.

Dino-mite. Dino-mite. JJ Walker. Dino-bite. You know what Dino-bite is? That'd're a Dinomite. Dinomite! Dinomite! JJ Walker. Dinobite. Do you know what Dinobite is? That'd be a breakfast cereal. That's like a pet food. That's when Arnie tries to attack Louise.

Yeah, sorry. I'm the worst person in the world. All right. So, the first question is, what are dinosaurs? Jim said prehistoric creatures that were here before mankind. We know they existed because of fossils. That's tricky. You know, smart.

That's correct, I think. But what are dinosaurs? I mean, that's like, it's not incorrect for sure. Everything there is correct. Animals that haven't been in my kitchen. But, you know, there is like, dinosaur is actually a scientific word that describes a group of creatures that share characteristics in common. So even though everything you said was correct, there are some more details that define dinosaurs besides just the fact that they're prehistoric.

So not everything that lived long ago and became a fossil is a dinosaur. So just quickly, did you have that T-shirt on when we started or did you have your top button up? Did you have it buttoned up though? I kind of hid it. Oh, okay. I didn't want to take it away from my guests.

I had to close. Yeah, I had to close for sure. Yeah, so there are other traits that define what a dinosaur is. So like, for instance, pterosaurs, commonly called pterodactyls, are not dinosaurs.

Oh. Yeah. My wife loves dinosaurs. I'm going to blow them on with that. Why aren't they dinosaurs? So, like I said, in paleontology and in biology as well, groups are defined by shared characteristics, shared traits.

And the traits that make a dinosaur a dinosaur, the pterosaurs do not have some of those traits. Now, pterosaurs are actually closely related to dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and crocodiles all belong to a group called archosaurs, which are the ruling reptiles. And they're all related to one another. So crocodiles and birds are the closest living relatives to dinosaurs. And as you mentioned, dinosaurs, birds are living dinosaurs. So pterosaurs fall

in that same group. So they are related to dinosaurs, but they're not quite dinosaurs themselves. So they're kind of like a dinosaur's cousin. So what are the traits that they have to have to be considered a dinosaur? So the easiest one to spot that is kind of used most often is what's called a perforate acetabulum or an open acetabulum. So, their hip socket has an opening in it, like an open hole. It's called an asshole, right? Not quite. It's in the wrong. If you had one, that would give you two of those.

It could be two assholes if you had, cause you have a hip socket on either side. So that makes things efficient. Yeah. Um, there's other things as well. One for fucking. Yeah. There's other things as well,

of course, uh, that define dinosaurs. But, um, if you're, if you're looking at like what is included within dinosauria, the group dinosauria,

it's things, uh, the saurian dinosaurs, which would be the, um, what is included within dinosauria, the group dinosauria, it's the saurician dinosaurs, which would be what we call meat-eating dinosaurs, the theropods, things like T-Rex and raptors, more scientifically called dromaeosaurs, and the long-necked dinosaurs. They're all saurician dinosaurs. And birds fall into the theropod category.

And then you have ornithician dinosaurs, which are things like duck-billed dinosaurs, armored dinosaurs, stegosaurs, and triceratops, and all the other dinosaurs, the plant-eating dinosaurs. And those two groups together form dinosaurs. And then just to the outside of that, not quite a dinosaur, are the pterosaurs. But they all lived at the same time, was there different periods for different dinosaurs? Yeah, so that's another thing that people commonly have misconceptions about. Not all dinosaurs lived at the same time. They have a very long history. They lived for a very long time on the planet, all throughout the Jurassic Cretaceous. So the types of dinosaurs that you would see in the Jurassic period are not the same kinds of dinosaurs that you would necessarily see in the Cretaceous period, which came after. Pterosaurs lived throughout that time as well. And there are different groups of pterosaurs,

like some of the, you know, some pterosaurs had teeth, some pterosaurs did not have teeth. You know, some were large, some were small, some had breasts, some did not. So even within pterosaurs, there's all these other different groupings, and they had their own evolution and their own change through the Mesozoic or the age of reptiles, as it's sometimes called. change through the Mesozoic or the age of reptiles, as it's sometimes called. And dinosaurs, they had their own evolution and change, and they had all their different branching groups that went on. And it got even more complicated as the Mesozoic went on because at the beginning, when dinosaurs first evolved, all the continents were kind of connected into one big one called Pangea,

which you've probably heard of before. And that broke up slowly over the Mesozoic and that isolated dinosaurs more and more. And when you get isolation from other populations, that's when you can have evolution occur and speciation, etc. So the dinosaurs that were living in North America in the Cretaceous period were different than those in South America or Europe, for instance. So there's all different communities even living at the same time. So it's very complicated. I've got that information in my head forever now. All you're going to remember is a pterodactyl is not a dinosaur. What does the word dinosaur mean?

Jim said old lizard. Okay okay that's 50 correct so the first part dino means terrible but it doesn't mean terrible like awful oh my gosh that's terrible means terrible is like in like awesome fearsome you know terrible lizard terrible lizard boom shakalaka and all people are terrible yeah that's true and they look like lizards yeah i thought all those was pretty good guess i didn't know what dinosaur man but i was like you might be right so um when did they exist jim said 300 million years ago okay that's not right idiot it's okay that's all right you know what the geological time scale is like massive when you really think about it it boggles the mind like you know how much time there is um so uh dinosaurs lived during the mesozoic which is the age of reptiles which

consists of the triassic jurassic and cretaceous but they only showed up sort of midway through the triassic period so usually we say around 230 million years ago is when dinosaurs started i'd tell you that's closer than most of my guesses 300 million is pretty good years ago is when dinosaurs started. I'd tell you that's closer than most of my guesses. I mean, it wasn't too bad. 300 million is pretty good. 70 million years old? Not too bad.

Not too bad. What was 300 million years ago? What was hanging around then? Oh, gosh. Let me see. There's people back then. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. 300 million years i'm always i'm always um i'm pretty sure that was the no no no okay i'm right it's the carboniferous okay so 300 million years ago the carboniferous

that's when you have like gigantic like insects and stuff like that roaming roaming around that's when a lot of cold there was a lot of coal deposits you know because of the uh the environment at that point as well so um you know there would have been some land creatures in the carboniferous as well um but australia still has massive insects doesn't it yeah but we're talking like really big insects we're talking like you know dragonflies with like gigantic wingspans like you know huge we're not talking like it's like beyond why were dinosaurs so big jim said because of the movies mostly and they need to reach up in the trees reach up in the trees man yeah well i mean so the thing

is dinosaurs were not all gigantic there were actually smaller dinosaurs and because birds are living dinosaurs i mean the smallest dinosaur is were actually smaller dinosaurs and because birds are living dinosaurs, I mean the smallest dinosaur is like a hummingbird, right? Cause it's so, so tiny. Um, but if you're talking about dinosaurs, what we call non-avian dinosaurs, it's not an official term, but it's what we use to describe the dinosaurs that went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period. Anything basically that's not a bird or a direct like, you know, bird,

fossilized bird. So non-avian dinosaurs, some of them were quite small, like maybe the size of a chicken or the size of a small bird, like a bigger bird, like a crow, for instance. So some of them were rather tiny. But dinosaurs did get very large, and they did get larger than almost anything that has ever lived on land. And that would be the long neck dinosaurs or the sauropod dinosaurs. And so there's a lot of different hypotheses for why they did get larger, but it's not known 100% for sure. We can test these ideas in different ways and present evidence, but it's a very difficult problem to tease out because it's not necessarily one answer, right? There's a lot of things that go into evolution of a species. There's a lot of things that go into, um, you know, um, uh,

allowing these creatures to adapt to their environment. You know, uh, the earth is a complex system. There's a lot of moving parts, right? Um, but some of the ideas that have been put forth, some of the hypotheses that are, that are being tested are, um, that the, uh, the plant life at the time, there was more plant life available to them. So they had more resources to get bigger. So they did get bigger, that the environment was more productive. There's also the idea that because dinosaurs are related to birds, and there's some evidence in their skeleton that they had a more bird-like respiratory system.

So they had a more efficient respiratory system, which means that they had a more efficient metabolism. And so they could process things more efficiently and that could let them grow larger as well. Um, the sauropods in particular have a very long neck. Um, and so that actually might've helped them get larger because they could forage for food more effectively without having to move their bodies, expend less energy to get more food, you know? Um, and, um, uh, there's also a hypothesis that, um, the, it was an arms race between their, their predators and them. So as their predators got larger, they got larger as like a defense mechanism. So the bigger you are, the less

likely you are to get eaten. Right. Um, yeah. So, but there's, uh, I just, I actually was, uh, someone asked me this question and I was looking into the information and there was a study published recently, um, that was looking at this question and trying to answer it using like mathematical models to try and model, you know, which of these hypotheses might, you know, contribute to the size and which might not. And in their study, they saw that maybe the predator increased pressure from predators actually would make them have a lower body size because they're trying to start reproducing faster before they get eaten. So that was an interesting, not the final word on the subject by any means, but when I read that, I was like, well, that's a very interesting point, you know? So just to say like things are still evolving, we're still learning new things. I feel like they make the dinosaurs

bigger in the movies than when I see them in the museum because isn't it right that the T-Rex is maybe 12 foot tall or something or maybe I've got that wrong? I think it's about three. I do think three metres at the hip. Is that about two and a half, three metres at the hip? They're pretty big.

Yeah, three. That's a lot bigger, yeah. Yeah, but like in the movie, it looks pretty big. Yeah, three. That's a lot bigger, yeah. Yeah, but like in the movie, it looks like it's 20 foot tall. It looks even bigger. Yeah. So the one that was for sure, if you're talking about Jurassic Park in particular, the one dinosaur that is for sure the wrong size is the raptors, the raptors or the dromaeosaurs.

They are much larger in the movies than a Velociraptor is in real life. And there's a whole bunch of other things about that dinosaur that is actually not what a Velociraptor actually looks like. They modeled it on a different dinosaur called Deinonychus, and then they named it Velociraptor in the book and then in the movie because it was sort of a showy name. So Steven Spielberg was lying to us that movie wasn't accurate. So what can I trust to the man now?

Yeah. Well, the thing is, I mean, it is a movie, right? They're movie monsters. Shut your mouth. Jurassic Park did a lot for paleontology because before that, a lot of the depictions of dinosaurs in movies and stuff had them as these slow, lumbering beasts. But we now know that dinosaurs you know were at

least most of them were were warm-blooded like the bird like birds are today um you know or at least some uh and so um you know it showed them as more like active agile things more intelligent things like it was it updated the public's image of what dinosaurs were all about um but they definitely added a bunch of stuff that was not scientifically based, which is, you know, that's movies, right? That's movie magic. Did you find that movie made your career a lot more interesting or did you find it made it a little bit more challenging because everyone brings it up all the bloody time? So, yeah, it's kind of a catch-22, I guess. I mean, it definitely brings up a lot of opportunities

to tell people about the real science because it invigorates them and gets them more excited about dinosaurs and paleontology. So it's definitely like a gateway. Like it gets people excited, gets them asking questions, gets them thinking about it. And then we can correct misconceptions and we can also, you know, give them new information that they maybe didn't even know that they might have wanted. So it was, you know, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Are you going to the cinema right away to see the new one? Are you going right away? Because like the dinosaurs in the new one are all over

the planet now. They're all here. We have to live in a symbiotic relationship with them. It looks pretty cool. Yeah. I'm more pumped for the one that's coming out on Apple Plus. That documentary, that's narrated by David Attenborough and it's based on the real science and it's going to be super awesome.

What's that one? Prehistoric Planet I think it's called? It's good because David Attenborough was there for it when it happened. I saw this T-Rex with my own eyes. The T-Rex with my own eyes. The T-Rex is an interesting animal. It has to forage to find food.

And he never tips. My dad told me that when Jurassic Park came out, we saw it in a theater and I think I was probably six or seven. And I think it scared me. And so when we came out of the theater, he goes, so what did you think? And I go, it was okay. I think I would have preferred Free Willy.

And so that was my quote. So you still like Free Willy. Okay. I saw Free Willy in the drive-thru actually. That's a long time. I bet you had dinosaurs walking around there. What got you into dinosaurs? Were you just a kid who loved dinosaurs?

Oh yeah. I honestly don't remember when i started loving them um i i told people when i was like three or four years old that i was going to be a paleontologist when i grew up is what i said to them my son's 90 couldn't even say that i i mean and um so i mean and you know, things have happened over the years that has, you know, like, you know, I've gone away, come back, gone away, come back. But Jurassic Park was one of the things that like, I reinvigorate, it actually did reinvigorate my interest in dinosaurs. I liked them the whole time,

but it made me even more excited about them to learn about them. And it kind of like solidified for me. So the original movie is definitely my favorite. I, I like the lost world. Do you like the band T-Rex? Do you ever listen to the band T-Rex? No.

Dinosaur Jr. Get it on. Oh, that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just heard that song.

Okay. How did dinosaurs evolve? Same way we do. They started as tadpoles and kept evolving okay so i mean that's kind of how all tetrapods evolve so tetrapods are the group that we also belong to which are um creatures with four limbs that live on land so even an amphibian is considered a tetrapod so it's not wrong because we all share a common ancestor with all creatures with backbones vertebrates that live on land are all tetrapods right um but i i mean dinosaurs evolved in the triassic period in the middle of the triassic period um and they actually their evolution was driven by the fact that

um there had been a very large mass extinction about 252 million years ago at the end of the Permian period, also known as the Great Dying. It's actually the largest mass extinction in the history of the Earth. And it wiped out a lot of the creatures that had previously been occupying these niches, these parts of the environment. And those would be the synapsid group. And synapsids are related to us mammals. So synapsids, that group eventually evolved and changed and became mammals like us. And they, the early synapsids ruled the world in the Permian period. And at the end of the Permian period, the great dying happened. And that opened up a bunch of space for new groups to evolve into those ecological niches, into those areas of the environment. And so for the beginning of the Triassic, there was all these

weird... So archosaurs did that. And at the beginning of the Triassic, there was all sorts of weird archosaurs, including a lot of relatives of crocodiles. So not crocodiles themselves, but relatives of that group, the crocodile group. And some of them were super weird and bizarre. And dinosaurs sort of lived alongside them. And then there was some extinctions in the middle Triassic, in the Triassic, and at the end of the Triassic, moving into the Jurassic that killed off those competitors. And the dinosaurs kind of emerged victorious. They out-competed their competition.

So there isn't a meteorite. There wasn't a meteorite. There was a meteorite. Yeah. How did that, that's later down the line. That was the end of the road for the dinosaurs. The beginning,

it started with an extinction that helped them out and it ended, ended because birds made it through. But for the non-avian dinosaurs, it ended with an extinction that helped them out and it ended, ended because birds made it through, but for the non-avian dinosaurs, it ended with an extinction that wiped them out. So. And that was a meteorite. That was an asteroid or a meteor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It hit in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. And so you know where it hit. Yeah. They found the crater. That's actually, so the, so there,

the hypothesis for why the dinosaurs went extinct, and of course, there were many posed over the years, but now the prevailing hypothesis that has tons and tons of evidence to support it is this meteorite impact. And the reason why it was first proposed is because in the rocks around the world that come from the very end of the Cretaceous period, dating to about 66 million years ago, there is a higher level of iridium, the element iridium, than there should be. So it's the iridium spike.

So if you measure it through the rocks, there's not very much, not very much, and then it spikes right at that layer, and then it goes back sort of to normal. And so they were saying, well, iridium is something that is not common on Earth, but is found more commonly in meteorites and other things that come from outer space. And so this is evidence that there was a large meteorite, a large impact event that the dust

spread over the Earth and settled down and caused this iridium spike. So they proposed this. And then they found this, the crater on the Yucatan Peninsula. And it's so big that you can only see it like if you do like aerial surveys like uh you know ground surveys etc it's like it's like buried on the ground it's gigantic when they found this and they dated the crater and found that it matched exactly to the end of the cretaceous period they're like okay here's the um here's the the evidence that we you know that here's the impact happened here. And they've also found other things, not just the iridium, you know,

in North America, you can find like little, little like little ejectile from the meteor, like little round. Oh, tech, tech tights. I think tech, tech tights. I think they're called. What are you asking us for? You're right. It's tech tight. It's for sure. Tech tight. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Little tech tight. they're called they're little round balls they're they're they're from impact events and they're found in the layer as well so more evidence that there was anything have you heard that bit of bullshit that i was fed at school that the animals ate all the food and that was the end i had heard that hypothesis yeah like when i was younger you know I heard that and also

that there was also I think a hypothesis that they like one of the really early hypothesis they got so big that they like crushed all their eggs there was some fact shit crazy just somebody going oh I reckon and that's what we were told at school the I reckon policy

they were smoking cigarettes they didn't eat their vegetables. So they died. What, uh, what did they look like? Like they did in the movies and TVs. Jim said, no one really knows,

but he believes you're going to say that people do know. That's what he said. Okay. So yeah, this is where, you know, we've actually come in. Okay.

So I'm going to say for some dinosaurs. Yeah, we don't for some, we don't. However, there have been leaps and bounds recently in paleontology in terms of understanding what dinosaurs look like as living creatures and that's because we understand better how to look for soft tissue

preservation so there are dinosaurs that you have like their imprints of their skin and actual fossilized skin. And there's also, of course, dinosaurs with feathers and they have the fossilized feathers right there on the, you know, on the rock beside the fossil. You can see the shape, the size, you know, and we can also tell the color. And so this is something that when I was younger, yeah, So not for every dinosaur for sure. And there's still lots to be learned about this technique. It's a new, it's a newer technique. It's being developed, but it's being repeated over and over again and getting the same results,

which is showing like a good sign that this is going to be a technique that we can use going forward. What about that one that has the flaps that came out and shot Newman in the face with acid? No, that's all made up. Newman, the flap monster. Yeah, Dilophosaurus is a real dinosaur. Don't get me wrong, Dilophosaurus is a real dinosaur,

but it did not have a frill and it did not spit venom. There's no evidence for that whatsoever. Like the frill-necked lizard in Australia, that would be from the dinosaurs, and it has a frill. But it's not a dinosaur. Lizards are a totally different group within reptiles. They're not archosaurs. They're not the ruling reptiles.

You've lost me now. Lizards and snakes are their own group within reptiles. Do you know how they sound or is that interpreted? I think sound is a lot more interpretation. Though the hadrosaurs, some of the duck-billed dinosaurs, they do have hollow crests and they think that that could have been used for resonating sound for doing calls, and they have

pumped air through it, etc., to hear how it sounds, but that is That was one right there. You know. That's a T-Rex. A lot of people don't know that. Kid for eating well. How did they have sex? He said T-Rex

reckoned they had penises. They came from behind and tackled them. Yeah, like most animals. Okay, so here's the one where it's like, I don't, we don't know for sure because up to this point, we have not found dinosaur fossils

where they were fossilized caught in the act. No one dies in that position people do i mean we found dinosaurs you know you know one person walks away if you're in the middle of it if you're in the middle of it and then you get like caught in a landslide or something or yeah or a or like a pyroclastic flow you know like it you know if something very very sudden were to happen i mean it's not with outside the realm of possibility but it seems very unlikely um to find um but we do have a little bit more information than we used to so um

paleontologists always assume that dinosaurs had what's called cloaca. So cloaca is an all purpose hole. It does it all. It's reproductive and excrement, you know, so you just, everything. When we did an episode on birds, we talked about the cloaca. All purpose hole is such an interesting. Do you have, you're tired of all these different holes that do different things get our new all-purpose hole yeah well so the thing is we always assume they did because crocodiles have them right and that's their closest living relative and birds have them which are their descendants so we just assume that you know it makes sense that they have them as

well but we didn't have that evidence until quite recently. They did find a fossilized foica and they were able to. So as I was mentioning before, we do know the color of some dinosaurs. And the reason we know this is because we have figured out that if you look at the fossil with a very high powered microscope, like a scanning electron microscope, you can find what are called melanosomes, fossilized melanosomes. Melanosomes are what hold the pigment. And so different shaped melanosomes correspond to different pigments, right? And so they look at the melanosomes and they see what shape they are and they use that to figure out what pigment was in that area. And so not only did they find a fossilized cloaca, they also looked and found that it did have some pigmentation, so possibly could have been, you know, displaying.

Yeah. And I think the paper mentioned that it looked a little bit more like a crocodilian than a bird cloaca. So, oh, hello, puppers. Sorry, there's a dog outside the towel. No, I think that's my roommate. Oh, don't worry about it. She cheers on zoom calls the whole beginning of the call the whole beginning of the call i can hear my daughter

upstairs my husband my husband was with her and i could hear her yelling poor girl she was wanting me but i was not here oh whatever these things happen oh don't worry about it it's okay this podcast is more important than your daughter because we made you come earlier. No, no, no. That's totally fine. There's a lot of... I'm sorry. Oh, go ahead. No. I was just saying there's a lot of pictures of dinosaurs having sex on the internet. Drawings, if you want to say.

Not pictures. Yes. Yeah. Well, there has been a lot of speculation about how it would work. Is there fossilized dinosaur dicks? No, no. So they have the cloaca, but there was no evidence of any reproductive organ. So that's the mystery because, you know, some birds,

the birds don't really, you know, they just kind of touch cloacas. It's called a cloacal kiss. Whereas like crocodiles have like an actual, like, you know, dick that comes out. That's one thing you don't see in Jurassic park with a T-Rex. You don't just see him with a penis hanging out there. Like we know.

Yeah. So we know for sure they had cloaca. We know for sure that they put those cloaca together, but what was inside those cloaca still a mystery. Hopefully we'll be someday solved. Um, and we do know that they engaged in behavior you know because like sex is also foreplay right so they engage in a different podcast for a different day come on like we know that they did you know do display behaviors right like there was um you, feathers were possibly used for display, you know, color, coloration, etc. And there's also evidence that, for instance, Tyrannosaurs were biting each other in the face, like face biting.

And these marks only show up once they've reached sexual maturity. So it could possibly have to do with, you know, fighting over territory or fighting for mates as part of that thing. fighting over territory or, or, or fighting for mates, um, as part of that thing. Um, same with ceratopsians, they have the horns, you know, and there's evidence that they use those horns for sure on each other evidence that they've, you know, pierced each other with their horns. You have the, um, the dinosaurs with the dome heads and, you know, it's, it's been shown that they did hit heads, you know, by looking at the micro structure of the dome, they've been able to see that for sure it was being used for these impacts and that could have possibly been part of courtship and display right so we do have you know fossil evidence of you know pre-behaviors and we have a fossilized cloaca which is like way more than we

had to go on before which is like excellent um but like the actual mechanics mechanics are still a lot of speculation. So with fossils, all right, just to change subject from the Quakers for a second. With fossils, can you walk through an area and go, oh, this seems a very fossil-y type of area right now in the desert? Or can I be digging in my backyard and go, oh, fucking T-Rex? Both. Right. So they can be anywhere.

It's not like it needs to be a dry environment or this environment. Where did they live is one of the questions. You said all over the world. Yeah, and that was absolutely correct. Dinosaurs lived on every single continent, including Antarctica. There have been fossil expeditions and dinosaurs found in Antarctica and in the high Arctic of Canada, because they evolved when the earth, the continents of the earth were all connected in Pangea.

That meant they were able to spread. Right. And then they split apart. And so everything was connected. They were able to go everywhere. And how deep, how deep would I have to dig? Like,

cause whenever I see the movies, it's always just someone with a brush. Yeah. Just sort of. Right. How is this so hard to find? It's right there. Okay. So there are some caveats to this so the you have to be in an area that has rock of the right age okay so the rock has to be so if you're looking for dinosaurs in particular if

you're looking for fossils in general then you have a way larger net like there are fossils all over the place not just dinosaurs um but if you're wanting to find specifically dinosaur fossils, then you have to be in an area where the rocks are of the right age, where they come from some period during the Mesozoic. So the Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, sometime when dinosaurs were alive, you need those rocks to be sedimentary rocks. So they have to have been laid down, you know, either under the water or, you know, in, you know, from sand or mud or what have you covering the animals. If you have an igneous rock, which is volcanic, you're not going to have fossils in that. Right. So if you have like a nice piece of granite, you know, that's not going to have any fossils in it. And, you know, as a child not understanding this, I definitely spent many hours in the park near my house, scratching at a dinosaur bone that turned out now that I have, you know,

more knowledge of geology, that was a quartz grain in a piece of granite, a quartz, you know, the mineral quartz, it was a quartz vein in a chunk of granite. So, yeah, disappointing. Yeah. I look back on myself. Oh, and you know, you know, hindsight's 2020, but, um, you know, so it has to be sedimentary rock. It has to be rock from the right age. The reason why paleontologists often go to areas like the Badlands of North America where it is so dry and arid is because there's no way to really know where a fossil is going

to be under the ground. Like ground penetrating radar, that kind of stuff does not work. So you have to find a place where the rock is exposed at the surface. And then you do what's called prospecting, where you go looking at the surface, keeping an eye out for bits and pieces of fossil. And then if you find something that looks promising, then you might do an excavation and uncover the fossil to see what's there. So that's why paleontologists tend to go to those dark, sorry, not dark,

tend to go to those desert type regions is because there's a lot of exposure, a lot of rock exposure, but it happens all the time that fossils are found during construction because if you dig into the bedrock and that bedrock is sedimentary of the right age, there is a potential for fossils to be found. It happens all the time. Do you believe once we're wiped out that there'll be another new animal that will evolve from the planet? I hope so.

Yeah. I hope that we don't mess up the planet so bad that nothing can possibly evolve to take our place. Yeah. That's a sad thought. How long do you think we've got? Oh, I don't want to speculate. I don't want to doom and gloom two months i hope more for my kiddos upstairs i hope more oh yes um no it's all

good it's all good our our dinosaur's smart uh no no for sure we can tell based on bones they hunted packs and stuff bigger than animals the dumber it is yep okay actually not too bad not too bad so again just like any group of animals there's going to be a whole range of intelligence um and for dinosaurs it does prove true that the larger ones were not the sharpest tools in the shed and that the uh smaller ones uh were a little bit they have to develop their brain more because they have to duck and cover and their survival is a lot more different than a larger animal. They just have to eat things and all that type of stuff. Yeah, and carnivores on average tend to be more intelligent than herbivores.

I like to explain it like, you know, carnivores have to think a little bit to catch something. Well, I mean, to catch something, you have to like work stuff out. You have to think like, okay, how far away is that thing? Can I pounce, et cetera? You know, but a herbivore, like it's not you have to like work stuff out. You have to think like, okay, how far away is that thing? Can I count, et cetera? You know, but a herbivore, like it's not that hard to hunt a blade of grass. Like it's there and you eat it. Wow.

Shots fired at the vegans. No, no, no, absolutely not. My husband is a vegan. So please don't say what you want. He's not going to be able to figure it out. Download the podcast anyway. Oh no, he's far anyway. Oh, no. He's far more technologically

savvy than I am. Anyway, as I was saying, it tends to be that the carnivorous ones are a bit more intelligent. It's not 100% true because, of course, elephants are very intelligent and they're herbivorous. It's not 100% true, of course. Nothing is 100%

always... rules are never right um how close are we to doing what they did in jurassic park will it ever be possible you've asked this before what was that what was the other one you asked that on that was about honey okay all right so so here's the deal um i think it's genetic jurassic park jurassic okay so here's the thing the way they did it in jurassic park is i i so everything in science you never want to say 100 no because you like we're always learning right science is a process and as new discoveries are made and new techniques become available new things become possible. So I'm never going to say 100% no. The likelihood, though, is extremely, extremely low. Because after Jurassic Park came out, there were paleontologists that tried to extract DNA from amber, not even the DNA of a dinosaur from a

mosquito's blood, just like even the mosquito itself, and they were not able to do it. And also DNA itself as a molecule is not very stable it breaks down rather quickly the oldest dna that we've been able to recover and that's been again a very recent thing is about a million years old it's mammoth dna about a million years old that's the oldest we have dinosaurs though if you're talking about the mic is a mammoth man like why can't we have a mammoth let's start let's start with a mammoth there there are people that are talking about that cloning mammoths etc but there's a lot of ethical things there as well that i don't know if we should get into give me a mammoth

i don't want a mammoth right so we haven't okay oh sorry sorry well i was gonna say like we haven't been able to recover that DNA, right? That older DNA, it breaks down too quickly, so we're not able to get it. And the amber doesn't seem to be preserving it any better than just regular fossils. And so the likelihood of us finding DNA in dinosaur bones that are 66 million years plus old is very, very, very low. There are some scientists that are trying to learn and understand more about dinosaur DNA by understanding bird DNA. What they're doing is they're trying to study bird DNA to see what genes do what. What genes make a bird specifically a bird and not other non-avian dinosaurs right

what gives it a beak for instance instead of having a snout with teeth you know uh that sort of thing what gives it what gives it wings instead of claws on its hands you know that sort of thing i was just thinking about a pigeon walking around new york with just a regular regular mouth and teeth and just terrified oh yeah so so they actually have figured that out. They figured out which gene did that and they inhibited that gene in chick, baby chicken embryos as they were developing. They didn't allow

them to hatch, but then they studied them and the pictures are incredible. It's like a little chicken, but it has a round snout that looks like an alligator kind of. The bones do, you can see. So that's called the chicken asaurus project it's a whole other thing that sounds where they're trying it's not it's not i hope taxpayers money is not funding this but like that's sort of another avenue right it's

called evolutionary developmental biology evo devo is it's like short form um and it's trying to understand the dna of dinosaurs by understanding the DNA of birds and what if we turn off these genes then we can see what the ancestral state is of birds and that ancestral state is the non-avian dinosaurs that we know. I reckon we'll be able to do it.

What is the study of fossils called? Jim said paleontology? Correct. Paleontology. The study of ancient life by studying the fossil record. Study of ancient life through the fossil record. So that's not just dinosaurs, though. That's why I call nurses in nursing homes.

What's that? Paleontology. Oh, got it. What was the first dinosaur? Jim said turtlesaurus. Turtlesaurus. No, no. Turtles are a very strange group. Let not get into that that's a whole other

thing because for they have a weird you know where they belong in the family tree i feel like you're about to get into it no no no i don't want to get into it i don't want to get into it turtles are strange and they're delightful they're delightful i hate turtles okay i don't know no not at all they are they are the arcalon have you ever seen Archelon? That thing with its toothless grin? It's so cute. It's gigantic, but it's cute. Anyway, so. First dinosaur. dinosaurs is somewhere where there's a lot more potential for discovery. We don't have that many early dinosaurs. Most of them come from South America and the two most, you know, universally accepted and well-known are Herrerasaurus and Eoraptor. And they have, and, and, and, and those, those two, you know,

around 230 million years old. There's a few others that might be a little bit older. All right. Just, just to wrap up, what's your favorite dinosaur? If you had to pick one. I hate this question. I can't choose. It's like, uh, okay. I'm going to pick my daughter's favorite. Hipsalophodon. What the hell is that one? So Hipsalophodon is my, my, my candidate for, uh,

the best dinosaur pet because they weren't too large. They were herbivores. So you didn't have to worry about them eating you. They didn't have very big claws or, you know, horns or anything like that, that they could gouge you with. They had larger eyes. So they were relatively cute.

They had a beaks, you know? So yeah, but, but smaller, you know, like 60 pounds or so, just like the little running guys.

If you've ever, if you've ever seen walking with dinosaurs, have you seen the, the,'ve ever seen Walking with Dinosaurs, have you seen the – from the early 2000s, there was like a BBC thing called Walking with Dinosaurs. Have you seen that one? No, but I've seen Dinosaur Train on PBS. Oh, okay. I haven't seen enough episodes of those to know if they –

Dinosaur Train's genius. The people at PBS went like this. Kids like dinosaurs, kids like trains. It's a whole lot of dinosaurs on a train. Yeah. And I love Dinosaur Train because at the end, they have – dinosaurs kids like trains it's a lot of dinosaurs on a train yeah and i love dinosaur train because at the end they have you know they come on and they say what parts were based on science and what parts were made up for fun and that is so essential so typical lifespans i don't know if

you know these gyms have brontosaurus 45 years. Was it correct? Or do we not know this? Okay, so yeah. Are you sure I'm not even going to ask this question? Or is it, yeah. No, no, no. There is. So I know for sure tyrannosaurs are the Sue the T-Rex, which is a very famous fossil, is estimated to be about 28 years old. Oh, wow.

We do have ways of estimating. Yeah, yeah. That's why I said it. I was like, when he said it, I was like, that's one of the reasons I gave him such a high score. I was like, oh, how do you know that that's good yes but um you know the jim morrison a dinosaur well so anything just like anything you know dinosaurs are going to have a range of ages right you know some are going to live longer than others you know smaller species

might you know not live as long etc but we do have ways of figuring out how old they are and that is actually by slicing their bones very thinly, looking at them under the microscope. And there are these things called legs, lines of arrested growth that you can count kind of like tree. Now that is, yeah, but it's not exactly, but you know, it, you know, there's more to it than that, but that's the general idea. And so we can estimate the ages of the dinosaurs based on how many legs they have in their in their uh their bones all right okay well this has been a very

good podcast i have a dinner party fact i know we have to get to the dinner party fact i'm sorry i get very excited i chat too much no no no no no no no this is all good what's your dinner party fact for people who go to dinner parties so they can say something interesting about dinosaurs all right okay first time demonstrated we like it i have um okay so i have a i have a few i i i have some for different occasions so the general fact the general audience is that we are closer in time to a tyrannosaurus rex than a tyrannosaurus rex is to a stegosaurus so that's well that is interesting wait we're closer in time to a t-rex than a Tyrannosaurus Rex is to a Stegosaurus. Wow. That is interesting. Wait, we're closer in time to a T-Rex than a T-Rex is to a Stegosaurus.

Yes. So Stegosaurus lived in the Jurassic Tyrannosaurus at the very end of the Cretaceous. Cretaceous was only 66 million years ago. It was more likely we could be friends with a T-Rex than a T-Rex. They didn't even know each other. Yeah. Exactly.

We have more in common i have a lot to share you know the same tv shows um well thank you joanna uh tiktok is at joannasaurus j-o-a-n-n-a-s-a-u-r-u-s i watched a couple of your tiktoks very informative and funny and fun so follow her on tiktok and uh thank on TikTok. And thank you for being here. Thank you for being on the show, Joanna. Thank you. If you ever had a party and people say, we're not that close to, which one was it?

T-Rex. T-Rex. T-Rex. Closer than the other animal. Bang and gone. I don't know about that. Stegosaurus. Stegosaurus.

Good night, Australia. You can also use that dino nuggets are actually made of dinosaur meat because chickens are birds and birds are dinosaurs. That one's easier for me to remember. Close us out again, Jim. Good night, Australia.