Many groups of life have conquered the land and water, but only four times in evolutionary history has life taken to the air. The most recent group to achieve flight are bats. Their combination of flight and advanced echolocation have earned them an incredible diversity, a worldwide distribution, and a deep-seated place in human culture, but their evolutionary history is a long-standing mystery, and their fossil record is nearly non-existent. But that's not going to stop us from geeking out about them! In the news: dinosaur scales, diverging crows, a new human, seal evolution, and that butchered mastodon again! Time markers: Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00 News: 00:04:30 Main discussion, Part 1: 00:36:00 Main discussion, Part 2: 01:09:30 Patron question: 01:49:00 The Common Descent Store is open! Get merch! http://zazzle.com/common_descent Check out our blog for bonus info and pictures: http://commondescentpodcast.wordpress.com/ Follow and Support us on: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/CommonDescentPC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/commondescentpodcast/ PodBean: https://commondescentpodcast.podbean.com/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-common-descent-podcast/id1207586509?mt=2 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCePRXHEnZmTGum2r1l2mduw The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org. Muscial Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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