{"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":"Why did T. rex have such small arms? Revealed","slug":"why-did-t-rex-have-such-small-arms-revealed","published_at":"2026-06-30T01:27:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fossil-files-7375611/why-did-t-rex-have-such-small-arms-revealed","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fossil-files-7375611","url":"https://a94020de-22e2-432b-af22-019fdb3026ee.libsyn.com/why-did-t-rex-have-such-small-arms-revealed","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/a94020de-22e2-432b-af22-019fdb3026ee/Episode_36_Theropod_project_norm.mp3?dest-id=5062010","summary":"Tyrannosaurus rex is perhaps the most famous dinosaur and maybe even the most famous fossil animal. It has long been a source of curiosity as to why is has such small arms though. What could the possible function be? This week we take a look at a new paper has taken a quantitative approach to this age long-thorny problem to investigate the evolutionary changes that might have led to such unusual anatomy. Indeed it happened not just one, but five times in the theropods. Let's find out why and how! This week's paper is \"Drivers and mechanisms of convergent forelimb reduction in non-avian theropod dinosaurs\" by Charlie Scherer and colleagues published in Proceedings of the Royal Society in May 2026. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2026.0528 Wide screen art by Arvalis/Saurian.","meta_description":"Tyrannosaurus rex is perhaps the most famous dinosaur and maybe even the most famous fossil animal. It has long been a source of curiosity as to why is ha…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2900,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-fossil-files-7375611/episodes/why-did-t-rex-have-such-small-arms-revealed/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/why-did-t-rex-have-such-small-arms-revealed.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}