The Fossil Files

Fake Fossil Fails [Bonus]

What happens when fossils that have been faked or 'enhanced' end up being used in scientific studies? Why does it happen? How can we spot them? How do researchers, prepar

Were dinosaurs eating fruit? Cretaceous Plant Power

As well as tasting good, fruit play a really important role in ecosystems across the world. But when did they evolve? Were dinosaurs eating them and dispersing them? In a

The weird case of a whale necropolis, sat at the bottom of an ocean trench for 5 million years

The deep sea environment holds many mysteries but yields hardly any fossils. A new mindblowing finding at the bottom of the Indian ocean challenges the way we think about

How to become a palaeontologist: Finding and applying for PhDs

Studying for a PhD is in an important step towards becoming a scientist, but the process of finding and applying for a PhD programme is mysterious and inaccessible. In th

The hunt for the first-ever animals, with Emily Mitchell

Where, when, and how did the animals first appear? The fossil record holds some tantalising insights from well-preserved sites in Canada, Australia, Russia (and Leicester

Did a lack of sex hold back the evolution of the first animals?

The first animals turned up in the Ediacaran as simple frond-like organisms that didn't do much of anything. Why was this Pre-Cambrian 'Avalonian biota' so static and bor

Why did T. rex have such small arms? Revealed

Tyrannosaurus rex is perhaps the most famous dinosaur and maybe even the most famous fossil animal. It has long been a source of curiosity as to why is has such small arm

Digging for dinosaurs and the battle against poaching: Susie reports from the field [Preview]

Digging up dinosaur fossils is a complicated and unpredictable business. But how does it feel to be one of the scientists on the ground doing the exploring? What can you

The Fossil Files is one year old: The best bits so far

The Fossil Files is one year old! Thank you everbody for your support! To mark the occasion, Susie and Rob take a look back at the last year and put together some of thei

The Mysterious Devonian Giant that may be an unknown branch of life

400 million years ago, before the rise of forests, the land was covered in mossy carpets, loomed over by weird 8 meter tall columns called Prototaxites. These weird giant

Were giant super intelligent octopuses the top predators of the Cretaceous?

Cretaceous oceans have long been accepted as a dangerous place full of massive mosaurs and other predators. Now some new fossils from Japan have upended this with the sug

Aliens burning coal? [bonus preview]

Are we alone? For decades a global effort has been made to search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), but have we been looking in the wrong place? A new paper sugge

How can we reconstruct the sense of smell of extinct organisms?

Smell defines so much of animal's life from finding a mate, to tracking down food sources and avoiding predators. Genetics and behaviour can offer us rich insights for mo

The First Fossil Puke: What It Reveals About Permian Predators

Fossilised vomit can provide direct, yet disgusting, evidence of past ecosystems and interactions between long extinct organisms. This week we take a look at "the earlies

How to get a Species of Human Named after you [Preview]

Getting a fossil species named after you is an unsual way to acheive quasi immortality, especially so for a species of human. In this preview of our second bonus episode

Fossil Fails: Weird ideas about how and when Mammoths were "Snuffed Out"

How and when did mammoths go extinct? This week we take a look at two bizarre mammoth related "fossil fails". The first is some unexpected results from from the "adopt-a-

How to become a palaeontologist [Preview]

How and when and why do you become a palaeontologist? Biology, Geology, something else? Childhood, undergraduate, PhD? Susie and Rob discuss the different routes and offe

25. A dinosaur covered in porcupine spines & the earliest fossil cloaca

The idea that dinosaurs were all scaley beasts got a massive challenge in 2000s when a variety of feather-like structures were found in fossils in China and other places.

24. How and when did animals first appear? Extraordinary new fossils from China

What (and when) is an animal? They are thought to have first arrived about 500 million years ago and immediately underwent an explosive diversifcation at the beginning of

23. Squishy fishies and horned Hungarian dinosaurs: Fossils hidden in plain sight

Sometimes the answer to palaeontological mysteries can actually be right in front of our faces, if only we know how, or where, to look. This week we take a look a two cas