The Fossil Files

Robert Sansom and Susannah Maidment
  • 4.2 (5)
  • Natural Sciences

In "The Fossil Files", a pair of palaeontologists delve into the latest discoveries from the world of palaeontology and seek to bring fossils to back to life. Each episode, Susie and Rob will discuss an interesting new research paper ranging from topics of what dinosaurs ate, how plesiosaurs swam, where we came from, and the science of de-extinction. Whilst doing so, we peek under the hood of how the science of palaeontology is done and how research gets to see the light of day. It is for anybody interested in palaeontology and past life whether that is students, researchers themselves, or simply the fossil-curious - we laugh as we learn, and hope you will too. Episode guide at https://fossils.libsyn.com/ Bonus content at Patreon https://patreon.com/FossilFiles

  1. 3d ago

    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 their favourite moments to highlight the best of The Fossil Files (so far) The episodes covered are: Episode 10. Fossil Fails: A Precambrian beehive and dinosaurs on the moon (September) Episode 3. Is de-extinction a scam? (July) Episode 6. Where did Pterosaurs come from? (August) Episode 12. Cretaceous zombie ants (October) Episode 9. The Spicomellis special (September) Episode 5. Were Neanderthals the first fossil collectors? (July)  Episode 19. Dinosaurs were doing fine (before the asteroid), with Steve Brusatte (December)  Episode 17. AI & the future of palaeontology (December)  Episode 2. Dinosaur poos from Poland (June) Episode 20. Back-breaking and baby making, the disturbing bedroom habits of hadrosaurs (January)  Episode 28. How to get a Species of Human Named after you (March)  Episode 32. Were giant super intelligent octopuses the top predators of the Cretaceous? (May)

    34 min

  2. Jun 9

    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 giants have long been thought to be some sort of fungus body, slowly digesting rotting matter. A new paper has taken a detailed look at some well preserved fossils from the Devonian of Scotland and reveals that this enigmatic giant wasn't a fungus, wasn't a plant, wasn't an animal, and wasn't a bacterium... it was something else. This week Susie and Rob take a look at the strange world of the Devonian giant Prototaxites and speculate what it might, or might not, have been. In other fungus news, we also take a look at a paper using fungal microfossils to suggests that dinosaur extinction could have been a multi-phase event, before and after the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous. The main paper discussed this week is "Prototaxites fossils are structurally and chemically distinct from extinct and extant Fungi" by Corentin Loron and colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, published in Science Advances in January 2026 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aec6277 The other paper is "Fungal proliferation before and after the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction event in North America" by Rosanna Baker and colleagues published in PNAS in May 2026 Fungal proliferation before and after the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction event in North America https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2536899123 Wide screen art by M Humpage

    41 min

  3. May 26

    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 suggestion that the "top dog" was not any vertebrate, but instead giant octopuses that were far larger than any invertebrates alive today. This has generated a lot of Kraken related headlines (and social media posts), but is everything as it seems? This week Susie and Rob take a look at these claims and ask: were super intelligent giganto-octopuses the top predators in Cretaceous? Get your salt shaker to hand, because you mind need to take it with a pinch of salt.  This weeks paper is "Earliest octopuses were giant top predators in Cretaceous oceans" by Shin Ikegami and colleagues published in Science in April 2026 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aea6285 Another paper mentioned is "Synchrotron data reveal nautiloid characters in Pohlsepia mazonensis, refuting a Palaeozoic origin for octobrachians" by Thomas Clements and colleagues, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B in April 2026 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.2369 Widescreen art by HodariNundu

    45 min

  4. May 12

    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 suggests that we should be looking for advanced technological civilizations that had access to coal as this was an important energy rich source enabling industrialisation. In this bonus episode, Susie and Rob take a look at the geological, palaeontolological and evolutionary implications of the seach for coal burning aliens.  This week's paper is "How common are oxygenic photosynthesis and large coal deposits on exoplanets?" by Lincoln Taiz and colleagues, published in the International Journal of Astrobiology in January 2026.  Widescreen art by NASA/SETI.

    9 min

  5. May 5

    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 modern organisms, but what about extinct organisms? How did they smell and what was their ecology? This week we take an interesting paper that has found evolutionary links between the endocasts of mammal brains and genetic markers for their 'smellability'. The authors explore how we can use this relationship to infer the smelling habits of sabre toothed cats and giant armadillos, and to reconstruct the evolutionary origins of whales. Get sniffing! This week's paper is "The olfactory bulb endocast as a proxy for mammalian olfaction" by Quentin Martnez and colleagues published in PNAS in December 2025 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2510575122 We also briefing mention another paper about Cambrian critters in the Ediacaran by Li et al https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu2291

    36 min

  6. Apr 21

    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 earliest terrestrial regurgitalite" from the early Permian of Germany. This prehistoric puke helps us to reconstruct who was eating what, including the Dimetrodon, the famous sail-backed synapsid.  This week's paper is "Early Permian terrestrial apex predator regurgitalite indicates opportunistic feeding behaviour" by Arnaud Rebillard and colleagues, published in Scientific Reports in February 2026. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02929-8 Another 'paper' we mention is "Unusual Arrangement of Bones at Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada" by Mark McMenamin published in 21st Century Science & Technology in 2012 (no doi). Another that we mention but couldn't remember the title of was "Carboniferous recumbirostran elucidates the origins of terrestrial herbivory" by Arjun Mann and colleagues https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02929-8 Wide screen art by Sophie Fernandez.

    31 min

  7. Apr 14

    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 we take a look at the weird, and often tragic lives of 5 people who have given their names to species of fossil humans, ranging from mad Austro-Hungarian aristrocrats to rampant imperialists and German pastors. Along the way we ask if we can learn some lessons from this ecletic bunch, and explore the fascinating new science revealing the face of human ancestors. The full episode is available via our Patreon.  The paper tangentially discussed this week is "Denisovan mitochondrial DNA from dental calculus of the >146,000-year-old Harbin cranium" by Qiaomei Fu and colleagues published in Cell in July 2025 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.05.040. Wide screen art by Australian Museum.

    13 min

  8. Apr 7

    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-mammoth" scheme, a fascinating citizen science project trying to find the youngest mammoth fossil to date their extinction. In the second, we take some time to consider the most bizarre hypothesis of mammoth extinction yet: did they sneeze themselves to death as a result of horrible allergies and then get "snuffed out"? Get your skepticism at the ready. The papers we discuss this week are "Adopted mammoths from Alaska turn out to be a whale's tale" by Matthew Wooller and colleagues published in the Journal of Quaternary Science in December 2025  https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.70040 and "Sense of smell reduction as factor for mammoth's and other mammals extinction" by Gleb Zilberstein and colleagues published in Earth History and Biodiversity in September 2024 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hisbio.2024.100008. Relevant past episodes of The Fossil Files are #10 "Fossil Fails: A Precambrian beehive and dinosaurs on the moon" and #3 "Is de-extinction a scam?". Wide screen art by James Havens.

    38 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.2
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

In "The Fossil Files", a pair of palaeontologists delve into the latest discoveries from the world of palaeontology and seek to bring fossils to back to life. Each episode, Susie and Rob will discuss an interesting new research paper ranging from topics of what dinosaurs ate, how plesiosaurs swam, where we came from, and the science of de-extinction. Whilst doing so, we peek under the hood of how the science of palaeontology is done and how research gets to see the light of day. It is for anybody interested in palaeontology and past life whether that is students, researchers themselves, or simply the fossil-curious - we laugh as we learn, and hope you will too. Episode guide at https://fossils.libsyn.com/ Bonus content at Patreon https://patreon.com/FossilFiles

Information

  • Creator
    Robert Sansom and Susannah Maidment
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    36
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025
  • Show Website
    The Fossil Files

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