From Part 2 of our interview with palaeontologist and palaeoartist Mark Witton featuring chat on AI, to news about the origins of teeth, and a very difficult game of 'guess that fossil', this episode has a little bit of everything.

More info:

• King Tyrant on Amazon
• Haridy, Y., Norris, S.C.P., Fabbri, M. et al. The origin of vertebrate teeth and evolution of sensory exoskeletons. Nature 642, 119–124 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08944-w

Can they spell it? No, they can't!

This episode features renowned palaeoartist Mark Witton talking about his new book King Tyrant and other topics in palaeoart. Plus, news on the world's first sauropod gut contents. Then, Travis and Alyssa challenge each other to a prehistoric spelling bee.

More info:

Mark Witton's website https://www.markwitton.co.uk/

Poropat, S. F., Tosolini, A.-M. P., Beeston, S. L., Enchelmaier, M. J., Pentland, A. H., Mannion, P. D., Upchurch, P., Chin, K., Korasidis, V. A., Bell, P. R., Enriquez, N. J., Holman, A. I., Brosnan, L. M., Elson, A. L., Tripp, M., Scarlett, A. G., Godel, B., Madden, R. H. C., Rickard, W. D. A., … Grice, K. (2025). Fossilized gut contents elucidate the feeding habits of sauropod dinosaurs. Current Biology, 35(11), 2597-2613.e7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.04.053

Palaeo artist James Pascoe shares his lifelong fascination with dinosaurs and how it has shaped his journey. He discusses the importance of community in the paleo art world and the role of engagement in science communication.

We discuss new research showing the origin of tyrannosaurs may have been in Asia and also how megaraptors arose and spread throughout Gondwana. And another new paper pushes back the origin of tetrapods and (maybe) places it in the southern continents.

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• Long, J. A., Niedźwiedzki, G., Garvey, J., Clement, A. M., Camens, A. B., Eury, C. A., Eason, J., & Ahlberg, P. E. (2025). Earliest amniote tracks recalibrate the timeline of tetrapod evolution. Nature, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08884-5

• Morrison, C., Scherer, C. R., O’Callaghan, E. V., Layton, C., Boisvert, C., Rolando, M. A., Durrant, L., Salas, P., Allain, S. J. R., & Gascoigne, S. J. L. (2025). Rise of the king: Gondwanan origins and evolution of megaraptoran dinosaurs. Royal Society Open Science, 12(5). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.242238