Lex Fridman Podcast
#480 – Dave Hone: T-Rex, Dinosaurs, Extinction, Evolution, and Jurassic Park
04 Sep 2025
Dave Hone is a paleontologist, expert on dinosaurs, co-host of the Terrible Lizards podcast, and author of numerous scientific papers and books on the behavior and ecology of dinosaurs. He lectures at Queen Mary University of London on topics of Ecology, Zoology, Biology, and Evolution. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep480-sc See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/dave-hone-transcript CONTACT LEX: Feedback - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact EPISODE LINKS: Dave's Website: https://www.davehone.co.uk/ Dave's Books: https://amzn.to/4pbk828 Terrible Lizards Podcast: https://terriblelizards.libsyn.com/ Dave's Blog: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/ Dave's Academic Website: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sbbs/staff/davidhone.html SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: Lindy: No-code AI agent builder. Go to https://go.lindy.ai/lex BetterHelp: Online therapy and counseling. Go to https://betterhelp.com/lex Shopify: Sell stuff online. Go to https://shopify.com/lex LMNT: Zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix. Go to https://drinkLMNT.com/lex AG1: All-in-one daily nutrition drink. Go to https://drinkag1.com/lex OUTLINE: (00:00) - Introduction (00:22) - Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections (07:18) - T-Rex's size & biomechanics (31:00) - T-Rex's hunting strategies (44:07) - History of dinosaurs on Earth (1:04:38) - $31.8 million T-Rex fossil (1:17:44) - T-Rex's skull and bone-crushing bite force (1:36:33) - What Jurassic Park got wrong (1:54:52) - Evolution and sexual selection (2:15:26) - Spinosaurus (2:26:02) - What Jurassic Park got right (2:33:35) - T-Rex's intelligence (2:43:34) - Cannibalism among T-Rex (2:49:05) - Extinction of the dinosaurs (3:06:15) - Dragons (3:22:39) - Birds are dinosaurs (3:33:23) - Future of paleontology PODCAST LINKS: - Podcast Website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast - Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr - Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 - RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ - Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 - Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexclips
Full Episode
The following is a conversation with Dave Hohn, a paleontologist, expert on dinosaurs, co-host of the Terrible Lizards podcast, and author of many scientific papers and books on the behavior and ecology of dinosaurs. This was truly a fun and fascinating conversation. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description or at lexfriedman.com slash sponsors.
It's the best way to support this podcast. We got Lindy for AI agents, BetterHelp for mental health, Shopify for selling stuff online, Element for electrolytes, and AG1 for my daily multivitamin. Choose wisely, my friends. And now onto the full ad reads. They're all here in one place. I try to make them interesting, but if you must skip, please still check out the sponsors. I enjoy their stuff.
Maybe you will too. To get in touch with me for whatever reason, go to lexfriedman.com contact. All right, let's go. This episode is brought to you by Lindy, a platform that helps you build multiple AI agents in minutes. They have their new Lindy build tool, which basically goes from prompt to business.
You type in the prompt, it generates the full stack, builds the backend database, builds the frontend, all the UI components, sets up the staging, deploys it, tests it, really thoroughly tests it, doing all the QA stuff, and then ships it. Plus, it has a large number of integration.
I believe with over 1,500 tools, it is really well, which matters to me, integrated with all the Google products, Gmail, Google Drive, Docs, Calendar, and so on. Anyway, the tricky thing to get right here with the utilization of AI agents is to minimize the number of times you fall over and mess things up and so on and
Lindy does a really, really good job of minimizing that, even for complex workflows. Sign up at lindy.ai.com to get two weeks free plus 50% off a pro plan for a year. That's lindy.ai.com. This episode is also brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P, help. They figure out what you need and match you with a licensed therapist in under 48 hours.
over 350 million messages, chat, phone, video sessions, over 34,000 licensed therapists, and over 4.4 million people that got help through BetterHelp. I think about the landscape of suffering that is out there. People feeling alone, heartbroken, afraid, going through a difficult time in their life. Anything that can help alleviate that is something I'm a big supporter of.
One of the big positives on that front of BetterHelp is that it's just easy to get started. And that's often the hardest thing to do, the first step. Anyway, check them out at betterhelp.com. And save in your first month. That's betterhelp.com. This episode is also brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere with a great looking online store.
I set one up in minutes at lexfreeman.com slash store that sells a couple of shirts. I should probably add some more in there. I just have to think about some interesting designs. There's thousands of integrations and third party apps, including one of the ones I'm using for on demand printing of T-shirts.
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