The Fossil Files
Episodes
25. A dinosaur covered in porcupine spines & the earliest fossil cloaca
23 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 Chi...
24. How and when did animals first appear? Extraordinary new fossils from China
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What (and when) is an animal? They are thought to have first arrived about 500 million years ago and immediately underwent an explosive diversifcation...
23. Squishy fishies and horned Hungarian dinosaurs: Fossils hidden in plain sight
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
22. The dawn of dangerous seas in the Triassic
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Life nearly died 252 million years ago in a mass extinction at the end of the Permian. It was long thought that it took 10s of millions of years into ...
21. Lead Poisoned Apes and Our Human Origins
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Lead is a well known pollutant affecting human health over the course of our urbanisation and industrialisation. But what about before this? Analysis ...
20. Back-breaking and baby making, the disturbing bedroom habits of hadrosaurs
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Having large body sizes conferred all sorts of advantages on dinosaurs, but it potentially made breeding a bit complicated. This week we take a look a...
19. Dinosaurs were doing fine (before the asteroid), with Steve Brusatte. part 1
23 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Part 2: Around 66 million years ago an enormous asteroid barrelled into the earth and wiped out ichthyosaurs, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs*. Debate has...
18. Dinosaurs were doing fine (before the asteroid), with Steve Brusatte. part 1
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Around 66 million years ago an enormous asteroid barreled into the earth and wiped out icthyosaurs, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs*. Debate has raged bac...
Will palaeontologists go extinct? AI & the future of palaeo
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial Intelligence seems to be changing everything, everywhere, all at once. But how will the science of studying the very old be transformed by ...
Rotting crocs, the dino bus, and engineering skulls: Day 3 at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the last of our series from the massive Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting, Susie and Rob finally manage to catch up for a gossip. In this ...
Swimming robots and walking fish: Day 2 at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
15 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
New fossil discoveries keep coming thick and fast, but we managed to sit down with the researchers as they present them. In this episode Susie and Rob...
Nanotyrannus and vertebrate origins: day 1 at the society of vertebrate paleontology
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Fossils Files are on Tour! Susie and Rob are in Birmingham for the massive Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference which has made a rare tri...
A new head banging dinosaur
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A newly discovered fossil from the Cretaceous of Mongolia tells us an interesting story about the purported head butting behaviour of dinosaurs. Pachy...
Cretaceous zombie ants
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cordyceps is a weird fungus that can take over the brain of ants and spiders causing them to go zombie and commit suicide in order to spread disease. ...
Fossil Fails: The tiny dino with a massive flaw
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Discovery of the smallest ever dinosaur acheived quite a splash when it was publised on the front cover of Nature in 2020. The new critter, Oculodenta...
Fossil Fails: A Precambrian beehive and dinosaurs on the moon
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the first of two episodes on notorious fossil fails, Rob and Susie take a look at how a serious case of mistaken identify unfolded for some Ediacar...
The Spicomellus Special
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Perhaps the weirdest dinosaur ever has just been described in Nature, by The Fossil Files' own Susie Maidment. In a worldwide EXCLUSIVE*, Susie gives ...
Mirasaura, Triassic Punk
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This new discovery is WEIRD. Mirasaura (the 'marvellous lizard') has been described from the Triassic of France, and it has mad projections coming out...
SQUID! (bonus episode)
25 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Squid are a really important part of marine ecosystems, but their fossil record is close to non-existent - their squishy bodies are just really unlike...
Our deep origins and the vertebrate that wasn't
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The origin of our own group, the vertebrates, has received quite the shake up. One of the important fossil players has been found to be an invertebrat...
Where did Pterosaurs come from?
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pterosaurs dominated Mesozoic skies but it has always been a mystery where these flying reptiles came from. This week Susie and Rob discuss Pterosaur ...
Were Neanderthals the first fossil collectors?
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we collect fossils and who were the first fossil collectors? Cretaceious fossils have been found in a cave in Northern Spain alongside the Nean...
Walking with… our Carboniferous ancestors in the rain
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our evolutionary timeline just leapt back an additional 40 million years into the past. Some new fossil trackways from the early Carboniferous of Aust...
Is de-extinction a scam?
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can we bring extinct organisms back to life? Colossal Biosciences caused quite the stir earlier this year when claimed they could do just that, and in...
Dinosaur poos from Poland
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How did dinosaurs rise to supremacy? This difficult question is given "fresh" insights from new data from a motherload of fossils from Poland. Over 50...
How does your plesiosaur swim?
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For our first paper, we look at some exceptional preservation of soft tissue in Jurassic plesiosaur (large marine reptiles). Detailed preservation of ...
Introducing the Fossil Files
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In "The Fossil Files", a pair of palaeontologists delve into the latest discoveries from the world of palaeontology and seek to bring fossils to bac...