The biggest news in palaeontology this year dropped just in time for us to miss it with last month's episode but we're giving it the full hour this time. The idea that there's a miniature tyrannosaur running around in the Late Cretaceous alongside Tyrannosaurus has long been a contentious one, with most palaeontologists favouring the interpretation that the specimens represented juvenile rexes. But a huge new paper presents a brand-new specimen that shows various unique features and importantly, is an adult animal while still small. Join Dave and Iszi into a deep dive on the history of these ideas ad why people are switching sides to support the idea that Nanotyrannus is real. One of the better articles from the media storm:

Nanotyrannus isn't a 'mini T. Rex' after all — it's a new species, 'dueling dinosaurs' fossil reveals | Live Science:

https://www.livescience.com/animals/dinosaurs/i-was-wrong-dinosaur-scientists-agree-that-small-tyrannosaur-nanotyrannus-was-real-pivotal-new-study-finds

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Dave has *another* book coming out and so of course he wants to talk about it a bit on the pod. Happily for the listeners, this time out he has a coauthor and so we get to have palaeontologist and palaeoartist Mark Witton on as well so that Iszi has some support for once. The new book is on that most controversial of dinosaurs, Spinosaurus and its allies, and what we know, and what we don't, and where the research is taking us. Given its insane media profile and the attention it attracts, as well as the back-and-forth in the scientific literature over its bizarre features, this is an animal well overdue a proper popular science book. So here it is, written by Dave and Mark, and with Mark's extensive illustrations throughout. But for now you can enjoy the chat about this animal and how the work came to be.

Links:

For Bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Mark's website with links to his blog and other pages

Home | MarkWitton.co.uk

An old blogpost of Dave's which looks at the main controversies of Spinosaurus swimming

The evidence for Spinosaurus being a specialist aquatic predator and good swimmer is weak | Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings

Long time listener and second time guest Darren Naish joins us to talk about marine reptiles. While Darren is best known for his work on dinosaurs and pterosaurs, he has fingers in a huge number of vertebrate pies, and he has a new edition out of his book on all of the Mesozoic monsters that lived in the sea. So, strap in for an incredibly being tour of mosasaurs, mesosaurs, placodonts, ichthyosaurs, plesionsaurs, thalattosaurs, thalattosuchians and we even manage to sneak in a reference to certain allegedly semi-aquatic large theropods.

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Check out iszi's NEW podcast about Egyptology www.talklikeanegyptian.com

A link to Darren's Home page which combines links to the blog, podcast, con and other resources.

https://tetzoo.com/

A link to Darren's post on the launch of the first edition:

https://tetzoo.com/blog/2023/2/27/ancient-sea-reptiles-is-out-now

A link to the Natural History Museum shop for the book:

https://www.nhmshop.co.uk/ancient-sea-reptiles-plesiosaurs-ichthyosaurs-mosasaurs-more.html?srsltid=AfmBOorc2zt792sWSVYdef8-O5zKci9w2Fiu6FhLlpX_lEATiWy1Gsn0