{"podcast":{"title":"The Fossil Files","slug":"the-fossil-files-7375611","podcast_index_feed_id":7375611,"rss_url":"https://feeds.libsyn.com/583670/rss","website_url":"https://sites.libsyn.com/Fossils","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/9/9/f/3/99f352ecbfc60de0d959afa2a1bf1c87/logo4-20250704-h86q14pd0t.jpg","author":"Robert Sansom","episode_count":40,"summary":"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","last_synced_at":"2026-07-21T12:18:38.080077+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fossil-files-7375611"},"episode":{"title":"A new head banging dinosaur","slug":"a-new-head-banging-dinosaur","published_at":"2025-11-03T06:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fossil-files-7375611/a-new-head-banging-dinosaur","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fossil-files-7375611","url":"https://a94020de-22e2-432b-af22-019fdb3026ee.libsyn.com/a-new-head-banging-dinosaur","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/a94020de-22e2-432b-af22-019fdb3026ee/episode_13_pachy_re_re_re_edit.mp3?dest-id=5062010","summary":"A newly discovered fossil from the Cretaceous of Mongolia tells us an interesting story about the purported head butting behaviour of dinosaurs. Pachycephalosaurs are famous for their thick domed heads but it has been disputed how or when this evolved. The beautifully preserved Zavacephale rinpoche has a well preserved skull and dome but also loads of details of the body and tail as well. What is suprising is that this individual is much smaller, and occurs much earlier, than other pachycephalosaurs. We take a look at this new fossil and what this means for interpreting the evolution of dinosaur behaviour. This week's paper is \"A domed pachycephalosaur from the early Cretaceous of Mongolia\" by Tsogtbaatar Chinzorig and colleagues from Mongolia and North Carolina, published in Nature in September 2025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09213-6 Wide screen palaeoart by Masaya Hattori.","meta_description":"A newly discovered fossil from the Cretaceous of Mongolia tells us an interesting story about the purported head butting behaviour of dinosaurs. Pachyceph…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2190,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-fossil-files-7375611/episodes/a-new-head-banging-dinosaur/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fossil-files-7375611/a-new-head-banging-dinosaur.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}