lost in the fog of a cosmic storm floating on
whimsical wavelengths is the norm dancing through
the stars chasing spectrums of light riding the
waves that are just out Welcome back. It's been
a minute since we here on Whimsical Wavelengths
last traveled through geologic time to look at
prehistoric life. Instead of looking at Jurassic
Park and theropods like the king of the Mesozoic
T -Rex back in season one today, we're going
to take to the prehistoric skies. Flight has
evolved at least three separate times over the
history of life here on our blue marble called
Earth. First, with insects. in the Carboniferous.
We actually poked at this back in Season 1 with
Dr. Hollister, when looking at the respiratory
systems of insects. Second to Evolve Flight is
actually the focus of today's topic, with a guest.
Petrosaurs, related to dinosaurs, as both belong
to the same clade, Archosaurus. I think I need
a refresher on the terminology and how they fit
together in the evolutionary tree, but a clade
is defined as a group of organisms believed to
have evolved from a common ancestor, as measured
by the characteristics of those organisms. Archeosaurs
include dinosaurs, petrosaurs, crocodilians,
and other mesozoic groups. And I'll circle back
to geological time periods in just a moment.
The third is da birds. evolving from small theropods
with feathers approximately 150 million years
ago. Finally, the fourth and most recent is mammals.
Bats are the only mammal to evolve true flight.
There is fossil evidence for gliders back to
160 million years ago, as far as mammals are
concerned, but the oldest fossil of a bat, a
true flyer, we have is about 52 .5 million years
old. And petrosaurs are not like bats and birds.
Their wings were supported by a single, elongated
fourth finger. You could say they were always
giving everyone the finger. Don't worry, I know
my petrosur comedy is terrible, and this joke
did not take off. So, quick orientation in geological
time for today's discussion. We divide the age
of the Earth into categories based on changes
in the ecology and the processes found in the
rock. Most large changes we see... To make these
dividing lines are due to large events, which
also tend to cause extinctions. Our current eon,
the Cenozoic, is the time of mammals, beginning
66 million years ago, after the large impactor
caused a mass extinction that brought down the
dinosaurs, all the way up to the present, 66
million years. The eon called the Mesozoic, starting
back at that impactor 66 million years ago, back
to 251 .9 million years at the Permian and Triassic
extinction event. The Mesozoic covers the rise
and fall of dinosaurs and many others, like petrosaurs.
Because, you see, before birds were cool, there
were petrosaurs. They first came on the evolutionary
scene at approximately the same time as the first
mammals, in the late Triassic, over 220 million
years ago, and were part of the skies until the
end of the Cretaceous, 66 million years ago,
when that large extinction event, also known
as the KPG event, occurred, wiping out all non
-avian dinosaurs. Today, we're going to get...
into them, specifically petrosaurs, and a member
of this group that was recently found and described,
Haliska Pettersenai. And I'm probably pronouncing
that wrong, but don't worry, the guest will correct
me. And I am absolutely ecstatic to dive in and
learn more about prehistoric life and research
in paleontology, and I'm so glad the lead author
for the study, Haliska Pettersenai Anu Anaguerian,
petrosaur from the late early cretaceous of australia
published in nature's scientific reports okay
so welcome my guest today is a stem communicator
being involved with bringing scientific results
to museum exhibits has consulted on scientific
accuracy on dinosaur stamps a children's book
and much much more please welcome phd candidate
adele pentland hopefully i'm pronouncing that
right a recent graduate boat to graduate from
Curtin University. Yeah, thank you so much for
that wonderful introduction. So kind of in the
back and forth as we led up to this interview,
you told me the PhD thesis was submitted. Now,
obviously, I had different ideas of what that
meant. I thought you had finished your defense.
But I mean, the writing part is usually the least
fun part of the degree because it's like all
consuming. How did you manage to cope to get
through it? Oh, so I kind of like broke it down
into stages. So yeah, writing a thesis, which
I think, and this varies from institution to
institution, but I think it's generally accepted
that a thesis is between 75 ,000 to 100 ,000
words. But I've been really fortunate in that
I did my PhD part time, while I spent most of
the time living on a 32 ,500 acre sheep and cattle
station. But I also, throughout that process,
was really conscious that I wanted to share these
results basically as soon as I could. And to
do that effectively meant publishing papers along
the way. So yeah, sort of in an unusual situation
of having seven lead author papers out. And it
just meant that I had a different set of problems
when putting the thesis together in terms of...
like jumping through different hoops and making
sure that I wasn't infringing on the copyright
of the publishers who in a weird way kind of
like own the work now or they're distributing
the work and also yeah just trying to work out
which version of a manuscript I could use in
instances where the paper hadn't been published
in open access so yeah it wasn't a whole heap
of writing although one of the requirements for
mine was putting together a comprehensive list
of all of the references throughout the entire
document which was about like four no it was
600 different references and i think maybe 30
or 40 pages that was a massive pain in the butt
yeah reference lists are my least favorite part
of any paper uh putting it together so i guess
um Just going from my own experience, there's
like generally, I mean, there's more than this,
but there's two general types of theses. There's
the story thesis and there's the paper thesis.
And I guess yours falls under the second one
where you have individual chapters or literally
submitted papers instead of each chapter kind
of leading to an overall story. Yeah, correct.
I would love to have had that sort of wonderful,
like overarching thing that just kind of like.
fed one into the next but the fact of the matter
is the project kind of got started because fossils
were being found at different locations and then
in terms of like a null hypothesis it's you know
is this new fossil that's been discovered is
it a new species if not what is it if it is new
okay amazing but what is it related to and just
kind of going from there so my thesis was called
early to mid cretaceous pterosaurs from eastern
australia so focusing on fossils that were found
in queensland as well as victoria um i had hoped
to work on some of the opalized fossils from
lightning ridge in new south wales but i just
sort of ran out of time um towards the end but
yeah basically just trying to work out Okay,
what is happening as Australia is part of this
massive supercontinent called Gondwana, but I'm
working on a group that have these wingspans
of, you know, several meters. Most of the pterosaurs
I worked on had like four or 4 .6 meter wingspans,
which is equivalent to 13 feet or 15 feet. So
they're massive animals. They can fly across
the oceans easily, but... Is that what the fossils
are telling us? So just trying to piece that
together and I suppose reverse engineer it and
work out what kind of a narrative can I string
together with all of these things to make it
make sense. That must have been quite difficult.
Although your thesis title seemed pretty straightforward
in the end of it. All as some others like my
own. Yeah, I just kind of, I mean. For some PhDs,
their project title and the scope of their project
can change as they get through it, depending
on, you know, different challenges and stumbling
blocks. But I was sort of fortunate in that.
That was the idea for the project, and then I
was able to execute and work with different partners,
whether they be regional natural history museums,
whether they be folks who are instrument scientists
at the Australian Synchrotron to basically shoot
lasers and generate high -powered x -rays of
the fossils that I was studying. At one point,
we did take a couple of fossils to a hospital
to get them CT scanned, just with medical CT.
And yeah, international collaborators as well.
So yeah, really fortunate in that what I set
out to do, which was describe some new fossils
that was able to sort of come together. And I
think I got you here to talk about one fossil
in particular. And I also know that you've done
all kinds of scientific consulting to... stem
pen pals even um and i want to get into all of
that but i think maybe the technical topic needs
to be teed up first pterosaurs you've already
mentioned them um but for the listeners who may
not be coming from paleontology what were they
and how did they fit into the their brethren
the dinosaurs that everyone remembers Yeah, so
a lot of people probably have a sense of what
a pterosaur is, or they might be scratching their
head and wondering, oh, why is she saying pterosaur
and not pterodactyl? And they might also have
the misconception that these are flying dinosaurs,
but they're not. So pterosaurs, they did live
at the same time as the dinosaurs, and they are
an extinct group that were wiped out. about 66
million years ago at the end of the cretaceous
period when a meteorite smacked into what is
now the gulf of mexico the earth had a really
bad day uh so pterosaurs have been around since
about 220 million years ago they first pop off
in the triassic period and even those earliest
fossils they're very distinct they're very weird
so we are still trying to understand what their
early origins look like. Mark Whitten has done
some beautiful speculative drawings of these
gliding reptiles. But essentially, they're a
really weird group, that's why I love them so
much. Pterosaurs also include the largest animals
to ever take to the skies. Quetzalcoatlus Northropi
was a beast that, when walking around, stood
as tall as a giraffe and had a wingspan about
the size of a small plane. It's absolutely bonkers.
It probably had a 10 -meter wingspan. So to me,
one of the massive joys about studying this group
is that it really highlights how different and
bizarre past life has been. And when you find
the fossil, of something that was as big as Quetzalcoatlus.
And you understand that it did fly. It just kind
of busts open any preconceived notions that you
have about what is physically possible. But yeah,
as I kind of touched on before, pterosaurs are
distinct from dinosaurs. Most people agree that
they're closely related to dinosaurs and together
they form a clade called Ornithodira. But...
They've got a couple key differences that distinguish
them from dinosaurs. And that's in the shape
of their shoulder girdle, their forelimbs, which
are modified wings, and also their pelvis. But
all that to say, basically the biggest thing
is that pterosaurs have basically... modified
their arms into being wings so they have a humerus
they have an upper arm bone they have a radius
and ulna which are the two bones in the forearm
that we have but then most of their wing is actually
made up of their ring finger which is stretched
out and super long and that supports a membrane
of skin so like in some ways their wing is sort
of similar to a bat but it's september as we
recall no oh my gosh it's now october Or it's
October for me. It's still September for me.
Yeah, it's still September for me. It's spooky
season. It's spooky season. So if you go out
to the shops and you have a look at, like, plastic
Halloween decorations, you can kind of see in
a bat wing, they've got the five bones of the
hand that are spread throughout that wing. Whereas
a pterosaur toy shouldn't have that. Most do,
but it should just be like bones that form the
leading edge and just a membrane of skin that
then attaches to the ankle. So really different
wing structure to bats and yeah, super different
to birds as well. Yeah, that's the main thing
that sort of makes them different. Even like
the gliding dinosaurs, like Ichi, I think its
wing structure is really different to a pterosaur
wing. How common were these animals then? Like,
did they fill lots of the ecological niches that
birds do today from predator all the way to like
scavengers and grazers and the whole nine yards?
Oh, that's a really juicy question. And it's
really difficult to work that out because like
birds, pterosaurs had hollow bones. So most pterosaurs
like that. The outer wall of the bone is only
one millimeter thick. And then it's mostly hollow
with these thin connective struts on the inside.
They're designed, they've evolved. They've evolved
to be as light as possible so that they can get
up into the air. But because of that, those bones
can easily get broken before they get fossilized.
And even as fossils, once they're exposed to
the surface, if... the hollow bits aren't just
completely filled with rock on the inside then
they get smashed up really easily so in general
it's really hard to work out how common or abundant
a group is just based on the fossils that you
have you can't really do like a one for one because
if we think of what are the most common animals
in our environment today they're insects And
they're very, very small insects. And yet there's
only a handful of deposits, like lake deposits,
where you might have a bias towards a lot of
the larval stage. But you won't be seeing lots
of the very, very small vinegar flies, we call
them, and things like that. So yeah, and it gets
super complicated as you do stuff with pterosaurs.
But to answer your question, pterosaurs... did
have a range of diets so some ate insects it's
been suggested that quite a lot ate fish some
have been suggested as eating um as being scavengers
there's a few that are regarded as eating fruit
i'm not as familiar with seeds but i'm also just
because i'm not a paleobotanist i'm also just
trying to scratch my head and think oh like how
common were seeds at this point because Even
during the Cretaceous period. Well, during the
Cretaceous period, flowering plants or angiosperms
are just sort of like getting started. Whereas
today, angiosperms are, I think it's over 90
% of land plants. A lot of our most important
crops are types of angiosperms. But back in the
Cretaceous period, you have sort of more like
conifers and ginkgos and cycads. they don't have
like fruit like the botanical definition of fruit
but they can have like seeding bodies and stuff
but then in terms of the nutrition of them i'm
not sure um but yeah i it's also interesting
as well because for part of their evolutionary
history birds and pterosaurs coexisted So even
though pterosaurs evolved flight like 65 million
years before birds did, there's been quite a
lot of research that has been trying to examine
whether the reason why, you know, pterosaurs
went extinct, is it because they were outcompeted
by birds and things like that? Which again is,
is like a whole other kettle of fish. Right.
Huh. So I guess just to sum that up is there's
a lot we don't know because we don't have a lot
of information from the rock record being preserved,
but it seems like they did at least have different
ways of feeding and providing itself to essentially
could be different ecological niches, but we
need more information to fine -tune that. Or
something. Yeah, so direct evidence is super
rare. That goes across the board with fossils.
I should also shout out that there are some really
weird pterosaurs that were filter feeders. They
had almost like a baleen, but it was made out
of hundreds of thousands of needle -thin teeth.
It's called Pterodostro. It's known from multiple
individuals. They found an embryo. In an egg
of this, they basically know what every single
bone in Pterodostro's body looks like from multiple
specimens. And yeah, they think they were filter
feeders. They have gastrolyths as well. So Pterodostro
was actually swallowing stones intentionally
to try and grind up some of the really tough
material that it was eating. So things like...
things with hard shells, so crustaceans and things
like that. And for that reason, some paleo artists
love showing pterodactyls being pink like a flamingo,
which I'm super into. Okay, well, we're here
to talk about one special pterosaur, and it's
not one of the special ones you've already mentioned,
I don't think, anyway. Who is it, and how was
it found? Yeah, so I'm definitely not biased.
I definitely don't play favorites. But, yeah.
Last year, I named a second species of pterosaur.
It's the most complete in Australia. I definitely,
as a Simpsons fan, have not created the, like,
homo, like, pushing the lamb away meme and included
it with, like, my pterosaur boys' names. So,
Halyschia peterseni is a 22 % complete skeleton
that was found in November 2021. It's hard to
believe that it's already been. a few years since
it was first discovered uh but and someone reached
the most complete at only 22 percent hey yeah
yeah so um it's really rare that you find like
a complete pterosaur like even the slab specimens
from the jihel biota in china where you can see
basically the entire animal Often you can't actually
see like every single tail vertebrae down to
the end. And normally you can't see the gastralia
or which are the floating ribs. So yeah, even
in those instances where something's complete,
normally those bones don't fossilize because...
They're either very small or they're just not
very well ossified in the skeleton, so what I
mean by that is that there might be cartilage.
But yeah, it's just a constant work in progress.
Honestly, before I worked on Heliskia, there
was only one other pterosaur specimen in Australia
known from a partial skeleton. Which is, again,
another one that I named in 2019. So yeah, there's
lots of room for improvement. And when I visit
schools and stuff in various capacities wearing
different hats, I love saying to them, we have
five pterosaurs in Australia. I've named two
of them within the last however many years. Just
imagine how many are out there, and maybe one
of you will find the next best complete pterosaur.
But yeah, for the moment, we have Holiskia. It
was found by a gent called Kevin Peterson. At
the time, he was the curator at Kronosaurus Corner,
which is a regional natural history museum in
Outback Queensland. And yeah, part of his job
was going out to a publicly accessible dig site
and seeing what he could find. And then... at
this actual other site some of the guys from
the council contacted him having made this discovery
and even from those first photos that he sent
to me on instagram i could see there was a complete
lower jaw in the ground which we just never had
in australia and then as when the specimen was
recovered and taken back to the lab and he was
doing more preparation work They're using fine
tools to remove the rock that was covering more
of the bones. He said to me one day, oh, there's
like a bone that looks like a thin piece of spaghetti.
And I was like, I know exactly what that is.
It was a really thin, delicate bone in the throat
called the serratobranchial. And just knowing
that you have such fine, delicate bones, which
often don't fossilize, was just, yeah, super
special. And I knew we had something good on
our hands. Awesome. There's nothing like the
discovery of something new, especially in science.
It's kind of what we do in science. Let's jump
into the actual paper that came with this and
where you introduce this to the rest of the world
outside of the small circle that found it. And
I'm going to totally embarrass myself here. So
I did the rock side of things. I stayed away
from chemistry and biology because I didn't know
how to spell. Yeah, that was the reason for taking
geophysics. So I also don't understand species
classification in evolutionary groups very much.
So I'm going to attempt to pronounce these. And
after that, I would love a retelling or an explanation
of how or what the factors and characteristics
that were used to determine the zoological taxonomy
classification. Even that's a mouthful. So kingdom,
animalia. So that's like animals. I got that
one. Phyla, chordata. Class Reptile, order Petrosauria,
sub -order Petrodactyla, family Anagrida, sub
-family Anagrina, and then the genus, which is
the species name, Halischia petersini. I butchered
it, I'm sorry. That's all good. So let's just
take a shortcut. So we already know this animal
has bones. Or, like, we already know it has bones.
So that rules out plants. They don't have bones.
And it rules out, like, fungi and bacteria. So,
yeah. Phylum Chordata, it's something that has
a backbone, essentially. So with the specimen,
we had some vertebrae. And the vertebrae, one
of the main jobs of the vertebrae is supposed
to, like, give the body, like, some structure
and stuff. But also that neural canal, that hole
through the vertebrae, that protects the spinal
cord. Because if you take a knock to your spinal
cord, then your nervous system is basically not
going to be able to do its job very well. And
then, yeah, this is technically a special type
of reptile. So as like a bit of a shortcut, if
you know that the rocks are Cretaceous in age,
the Mesozoic period, and the Mesozoic can then
be broken down into Triassic, Jurassic, little
obscure thing, you might've heard of it, and
Cretaceous. So age of reptiles, it doesn't, well.
At this time, there are mammals around. They're
very small. Based on size alone, you can probably
rule out that it's probably not a mammal. And
yeah, it has these super elongate wing bones.
So it's a type of pterosaur. So that is where
the order Pterosauria comes in. And then pterosaurs
can be split into two major groups. You have
pterodactyloids and you have... Not pterodactyloids.
So pterodactyloids are sometimes called short
-tailed pterosaurs. And if you have something
from the Cretaceous period, chances are it's
probably a pterodactyloid. So again, just kind
of process of elimination, Occam's razor, the
most likely thing is probably what it's going
to be. And then we've got our family and Hank
Weraday. That's how I pronounce it. It is based
on, like, the first Anhanguera was named from
Brazil. And when I went to Brazil, I'm pretty
sure I pronounced that word around some colleagues
and they didn't correct me. Unlike the family
name that has an X in it, which in Portuguese,
in Brazilian Portuguese, is pronounced like a
sh. So the word for cup in Brazilian Portuguese
is xícara. Not Isikara, if I was pronouncing
it with my really bogan Australian Queensland
accent. But yeah, so my supervisor and I were
saying the word Tupuksuara, but it should be
pronounced Tupushuara. So yeah, trying to pay
attention to like who named it and how they pronounce
things is super helpful. But Anghanguera basically
means old devil, which is a sick name. And a
lot of members of the family Anhangweride have
what's called a crest on the end of their snout.
So I've tried to explain what this is before
in only audio formats, and it's always a little
bit tricky. But it's kind of, imagine like a
spoon bill, but turn that on 90 degrees. It's
kind of like this weird sort of diamond profile
at the end of the snout. And if it's flying at
you straight on, it's very, very thin. It's only
one or two millimeters thick. So we had enough
of the skull of this new pterosaur from Queensland
to say, oh, it has a premaxillary crest. It's
probably a member of this family, Anhangueridae.
um other people might be more familiar with the
family name ornithoceridae um especially if you
watched uh walking with dinosaurs for example
some people think that they're the same thing
some people maintain that they're different let's
not get into it if anyone really wants to know
they can message me about it but i think i think
that's like enough taxonomy and i realize like
it's It's super complicated, but as people who
work in science, generally speaking, it does
help to group things together by similar uniting
features. You might be working on rocks and just
classifying different igneous rocks. You might
be looking at microbes under a microscope and
having features that you use to classify things.
is something that you see across the board. I
just think that sometimes paleontologists...
I wouldn't say take it too far, but anyway. You're
basically describing lumpers and splitters right
there. Yes, oh my gosh, yes. So if you've never
heard that term before... Really common thing
in geology. Yeah, a splitter is like... A splitter
kind of has the mindset of like, oh, this is
new and nothing like this has ever been seen
before. Whereas a lump, like it's two extremes,
right? But a lump reminds me like, oh, like everything
that looks like this is all this one species,
for example, in paleontology. There are pros
and cons to both approaches because of course,
like even if you just look around, if you're
in a room of people right now and you look around,
you will see individual variation. And that's,
you know, reflected through like different genetics,
like different life stages, differences between
sexes, like all of these things as well, which
can be really difficult to pass out when all
you have are bones. And not all of the bones
either. Yeah. My next question is kind of following
along the same tract and perhaps maybe should
have come first, but I kept coming across because
I actually read the papers that I do this. Sometimes
I don't understand them. I felt pretty confident
in some of the non -super technical stuff about
the bones, but one thing that kept coming up
was a way to refer to specific fossil specimens
in the... paper i guess with letters and numbers
almost like a code i'm not quite sure i know
how to crack it but if i were to take a guess
each species discovered is assigned a standard
to represent that species like a standard for
dog breeds at a show and this number uh it gets
to be assigned as that species standard is that
what it is or am i stretching it too much that
is that no no like you're very very close um
okay so Let's use the example of Holiskia and
the specimen number is KKF1426. So that is a
museum catalogue number. So the idea is that...
You might have, there are different institutions,
say, for example, another one that I know off
the top of my head is AAOD, which is Australian
Age of Dinosaurs. So when you see that at the
start of a number, you know which museum, you
know, hopefully, what the geographic location
of that specimen is, if you then want to do a
research visit to see it. Museums have to be
audited as well. They need to prove for, I think,
insurance purposes. to the government as well,
that they have the specimens that they say they
have. And ideally with museum catalog numbers,
each number is unique. There are no double ups
as well. So, and how this kind of works in terms
of my research is that say, for example, someone
later this year, and I don't think this is going
to happen. Hopefully not. Say, in our example,
someone says, Holiskia isn't a valid species.
The characters that you've used to identify it
and distinguish it from other members of its
family, you know, if they find a specimen and
it's like, oh, actually, you know, these three
features are also found in four other species,
then Holiskia isn't a valid species anymore.
But KKF 1426 still exists. It will always exist.
So if the species name is sort of like the wine
label, then the museum number is kind of like
the bottle, like the physical thing that exists.
And in that instance, someone might say, okay,
KKF 1426. So that's the holotype specimen of
Heliskia. That's kind of how that is working
right now. But if we circle back to our example,
and someone tries to nuke Heliskia and tell me
that my work is garbage, which does happen in
science, and science is self -correcting. In
that example, they might say Heliskia is a junior
synonym of another species, and KKF 1426 should
be a referred specimen of a species that was
named maybe five or ten years ago, something
like that. yeah it also does get tricky when
and it doesn't often happen but specimens can
get moved to different museums and then those
numbers can change um but it doesn't happen that
often so it's kind of sometimes if a fossil has
a bit of like a complicated or a contentious
history uh for me sometimes in my like library
of papers it's a lot easier sometimes to just
put in the specimen number and work out who said
what about it rather than trying to follow what
different names it's been given. And also some
people will come up with nicknames. Say, for
example, they might call something the Richmond
polycotyled or polycotyled, however you want
to pronounce it. That might only be used in one
paper. So then to sort of like track it is, yeah,
it's super messy. But essentially, museum collection
managers are probably... thinking that i've made
a hash of this but those unique numbers should
mean that in a well -organized collection if
someone says i would like to study this specimen
you know exactly where it is in the shelf and
then you can get it ready for them to have a
look at so they can do their science i hope that
makes sense so one of the things that you said
right there was hollow species like the one yeah
holotype the specimen that is the best rep Right,
so I guess where I was coming from, my understanding
was that that part, you could end up changing
the fossil number. A newer fossil that's more
complete can become the hollow type, right? Normally,
if there's a new holotype, which is called a
neotype, normally what's happened is the original
fossil got destroyed. Say, for example, during
World War II, when those fossils were bombed,
then they needed to define a neotype, a new holotype.
Even if you have a holotype and it's 10 % complete...
We're back to Spinosaurus, by the way, for those
that are following. Yeah. Take a shot. No. I
mean, yeah, I haven't talked about Jurassic Park
yet, but all these... All roads tend to lead
back to Jurassic Park and Spinosaurus in some
ways. So, yeah. Oh, gosh, what was I saying?
Just distracted now. Oh, even if you have a holotype
that's 10 % complete, and then if you have a
100 % complete specimen that's found later, normally
what happens is the holotype still remains the
holotype by definition. It just kind of might
get pushed to the side in the literature and
people will focus on. That really nice, more
complete, more anatomically informative, like
full of bones specimen. Interesting. So that
is different from other fields of geology. Like,
for instance, if you found a better set of strata
that better shows, let's say, the K -T boundary
where everything got nuked due to the asteroid,
you would actually change the best. what the
standard is for the K -T boundary. You would
actually change it to the new spot. So I'm surprised
it doesn't change to the individual fossils.
Yeah. If I had to guess, I'd say that paleontology
has a few hangovers of, this is the way it's
always been. That kind of mentality. So things
might change in the future. It would be handier
if it was, you know, Just the holotype is the
best representation of X, whatever it is. But
sadly, that's not the rules that we operate by.
I learned so much from this. I'm so glad I keep
doing this. The next section of the paper I want
to get into seems to hit at a common problem,
piecing together individuals and species. We've
already alluded to it here that you could end
up renaming a species based on other data. And
I guess my context comes from the last time.
the podcast looked at Tyrannosaurs, where in
my research, separate species just kind of disappeared
from the literature because they were lumped
in with other species. And Tyrannosaurs, they're
a bit more complicated because they grow so much.
And so the smaller ones were being labeled as
their own species, even though they were just
not adults. But with not a whole lot of bones
and lack of preservation, I assume there's similar
issues here, right? Yeah, so there definitely
can be. With the groups that I study, it's more
a case of whether the variation, like the differences
in the bones are because of maybe like male -female
variation. And I think it might also just come
from looking at pterosaurs through a bird lens
and knowing that in some bird species, They don't
tend to have big differences in the body size,
but their ornamentation, like their feathers,
their coloration, can be wildly different. Think
of a peacock and a peahen, for example. That's
one of the extremes. So in Anghanguarian pterosaurs,
there has been some debate about whether species
that lack a crest entirely are... distinct that's
that's kind of the assumption that we have but
in terms of like how big the crest is early days
there's a lot of emphasis put on like the angle
the shape like how big it is does it reach like
the end of the snout um these days not so much
but i will also add the caveat that when we do
what's called a phylogenetic analysis we are
still sort of placing emphasis on those features.
But to sort of try and like tie this in a bow,
it's important to note that some of the Anhanguarian
pterosaurs with the biggest wingspans, they don't
always have the biggest crests. So there's, yeah,
been like a little bit of that going on. Unfortunately,
oh, well, for better or for worse, this is a
group where we don't have basically... any juvenile
or very few sub -adult specimens. Which is crazy
because there have been so many fossils found
from Brazil. The Araripe Basin is a fossil Lagerstaden,
which is just a fancy German word to say that
they have a crazy amount of fossils that come
out of there. And there is quite a lot. about
fossils that have been illegally smuggled out
of Brazil, but out of all of the specimens that
are known in museum collections and even the
ones that are in private collections, as far
as I know in the conversations I've had with
colleagues, we still don't have evidence of these
young animals. So to me, that might signal that
the colonies, the rookeries, like where the juveniles
are hanging out are, you know, in a different
space to where these adults are hunting in these
lagoon and in my case, the Aramanga Sea, you
know, these inland oceans, they're not able to
get out there and hunt for those reasons. So
they're not being fossilized with the adults.
So it can, yeah, definitely be an issue as well.
And that's something that I need to keep in mind.
It's something that I hope that I always sort
of have in the back of my mind when I'm looking
at a fossil, trying to be aware of my own ego
as well, because I would hate and be super embarrassed
by the fact that if I named a new species and
then someone else later said, oh, actually, it's
the same as another species you've already named
before. So when I was working on Heliskia, even
though I knew it was six million years older
than Ferro Draco, it was in a different fossil
environment. I really had to try and like keep
myself honest and say, okay, some species do
last for millions of years. Like really prove
to yourself and back yourself and know, or like,
you know, have a long list of these are the reasons
why it's a new species, not just the underlying
assumption that, oh, it's 6 million years older.
Of course, it's going to be a new species. No,
like you need to look at the bones. If you have,
you know, the same species here on earth and
on the moon. you know, it doesn't matter the
separation of time or distance. Again, you just
need to really focus on it. And yeah, just having
great collaborators that keep me honest as well,
that I can have these conversations with also
helps make the science really rigorous. Next,
we get to where I was going to bring up the Spinosaurus
controversy in a different way. Because I guess
just like the T -Rexes, size is something of
a focus, especially when it comes to the prehistoric
stuff, because it does matter, at least for journalism.
It seemed to me, and I'm a complete outsider,
that the paper hinted at wingspan estimates have
been contentious with different species. Is that
right? Yeah, so of the five species, of pterosaur
we have in Australia. Two are known from partial
skeletons that preserve parts of their wings,
but not every single bone in their wing is represented.
And then the other three, they're just known
from skulls. So I have a little bit of issue
with people trying to estimate a wingspan just
based on a skull, because even if you know what
family it belongs to, depending on what you compare
it with, you might end up with something that's,
you know, three meters or it could get blown
up to like eight or nine meters. I don't have
the exact conversions in feet, but I think that'd
be, you know, as big a difference as like 10
feet to 20 feet. Like that's a huge difference,
right? So yeah, I just think it's bonkers as
well. Like if I looked at someone's, if I knew
someone's hat size, I wouldn't know what their
shoe size was because there is that level of
variation and... Yeah, it's for me, I just try
and be conservative. Say, for example, with one
of the first pterosaur species that was named,
you know, we only have the middle section of
the skull. It could be its wingspan is probably
somewhere between four to six meters. We don't
know at this stage. Hopefully we find a more
complete specimen and we can fine tune that.
But yeah, I'm pretty skeptical and very aware
that, yes, the biggest, the smallest, the fastest.
there's a lot of emphasis that's put on those
things and those hard numbers as well. And don't
worry, I work in meters too. It's only my American
listeners that are still in feet. I guess the
British are too, aren't they? No, I think the
British are going with meters and stuff. Yeah,
no, it's all good. I am in the loose habit of
trying to do the conversions and stuff. With
my podcast, even though I'm based in Australia,
I think most of my listenership was based in
the US, which was wild to me when I first started.
But yeah, love having that in there for accessibility.
Maybe one day you will see that meters is truly
superior, but if you work in feet, I know you're
not going to Google it, so I might as well slap
it together in my notes. Yeah, although... Anyone
listening, you can get pretty close to three
feet per meter. As long as you're not having
a ton of meters, it's going to work out just
fine. Yard and meter is pretty close. But at
any rate, we kind of did a little bit of how
they lived because you kind of went over the
fact that we don't have young ones in the fossil
record. So it is completely conjecture, I guess.
The young ones, seaside cliffs, trees, we have
no hard evidence then. Yeah, so there's a few
sites where they have eggs and nest sites. So
I think for, and again, it's like kind of difficult
to know because if you have like a storm deposit
and you have a bunch of eggs that have been washed
in, you can't assume that they were all laid
by the same individual. And you can't really
assume like what the clutch size was. It seems
that for the pterosaurs that we know, they have
multiple eggs rather than just one egg. But if
we think about birds as well, like there's a
huge amount of like strategy and diversity. Like
some of the really large species, they'll have
maybe one or two eggs. One is sort of an insurance
policy for the other egg. But when that hatches,
you know, the parents put all of their effort
and time into trying to raise that one chick.
Think of, say, emperor penguins, for example.
They have a really challenging environment. Food
sources are limited. So having a clutch size
of eight or so chicks, they're probably not all
going... Well, none of them will probably survive
in that instance. So there's that. But for the
eggs that have been found of pterosaurs... I'm
so glad I get to talk about this because I was
going to include it in my thesis and then I ended
up cutting it because it wasn't relevant. But
it seems that the eggshells for a lot of pterosaur
eggs are not super hard shelled. So they're a
little bit different to birds. So there's been
a little bit of conjecture about incubating those
eggs in warm sand, for example. And sort of that
side, like sort of that. strategy for example
but yeah if pterosaurs are in trees as well then
having your eggs off the ground away from quite
a lot of predators would also be a great strategy
so there's yeah there's a little bit of conjecture
about uh the chemical composition of the eggshells
technically my boss's boss is a geochemist I
have not really like picked up anything like
that and haven't really gone down that line of
analysis in my own research, but that seems to
be what we have at the moment. But I think there's
only three or so species where we have eggs and
embryos and eggs represented out of the 200 plus.
pterosaur species that we know of so again there's
probably like a wide range of behaviors and habits
going on and yeah in terms of you know parental
care strategies and stuff um this is something
that I did touch on in my thesis sort of building
on work that was done by Darren Nash along with
um Liz Martin Silverstone and colleagues they
talk about the fact that based on the wing bone
ratios of some of the pterosaurs they looked
at it seems that soon after hatching pterosaurs
could fly which seems to suggest that there's
not a lot of parental care going on that the
young aren't dependent on the adults and they
can relatively quickly get on with things and
get their own food and things like that but again
there's yeah I mean, with those really big giraffe
-sized pterosaurs and stuff, well, are they doing
the same thing? We don't have fossils to say
whether that's the case. Yeah, all sorts of things
to think about. The amazing thing about science,
and definitely with paleontology, is the more
you find out, just the more questions that you
have. Yeah, because if that isn't happening,
you're doing it wrong. Yeah. The idea is to try
and keep yourself in a job. Hey, now, I think
it's always a bit more about like just exploring
the universe. And if life would be so boring
if you just had all the answers. I mean, that's
the that's the human condition, I think. Yeah.
And paleontology is like time travel. Yeah, for
sure. And before we move on to more of the present,
is there anything we missed from the paper or
in our discussion of the individual? I won't
try to pronounce its name again. Uh, yeah. So
with Holiskia, Peters and I, um, I mentioned
before it had like those throat bones, like that
thin piece of spaghetti, uh, of any pterosaur
where we have like the complete lower jaw and
the throat bones, Holiskia has like the biggest
ratio. Like those throat bones are super long
compared to the lower jaw. So, uh, when I commissioned
Gabriel Aguero to do the paleo art for that,
um, which was amazing. best like money i've ever
spent uh you know we were sort of discussing
like oh maybe like we'll give it a bit of a gula
pouch which is speculative we don't have any
soft tissue evidence with that fossil um but
yeah it seems like it's got like a really really
strong tongue to maybe i don't know slip down
fish or cephalopods whatever it was hunting so
yeah there's There's some of that going on. But
then in terms of, like, the specific diet for
this animal, quite a few pterosaurs and other
creatures that lived in the Aramanga Basin, in
this massive inland sea that covered part of
Australia during the Cretaceous period, quite
a lot of them have these lines or ridges on their
teeth that go up and down from, like, the tip
to the base. But Heliskia doesn't seem to have
any of that. And I don't think that any of those
ridges were present and they've eroded away.
I think they're just genuinely not there. They're
absent. So when I compare that with, say, like
the teeth of Mathanga, which has these really
chunky ridges, to me it's like, okay, well, the
idea with the chunky ridges is kind of like it
helps to grip food. So if you think of your fingertips
when you're in water and you get like pruney
fingers. the idea or not the idea what is happening
is your body is doing that so that you can grip
things better like those extra surfaces help
you grab things better the same with ridges on
teeth so the fact that heliskia doesn't have
them there yeah just it it's not important or
there's something else going on um yeah there's
more work that i'd love to do on it but I have
like a few other projects and stuff that are
sort of like begging for my attention, including
like museum and exhibition design to try and
like showcase that specimen as best I can. But
yeah, there's, if you want to read more about
it, I wrote an article for something called The
Conversation about what that fossil can tell
us. So if reading scientific papers isn't so
much your thing, that's also like a really great
place to start. Yeah, send me the link. I'll
make sure it gets included in the show notes.
But you were just mentioning the same as the
next question I was going to bring up, because
introducing you, you spent a fair bit of time
helping design, make, well, anyway, exhibits
anyway, producing them in some way for museums.
And I guess you're just telling me the plans
that you are going to make the same treatment
for this species or this discovery, or has it
already happened? Oh, so it hasn't sort of, we're
in the messy middle. We're in the interesting
part. So in terms of some of the other exhibition
designs that I've been involved with, I can't
take a whole heap of credit. So one was with
the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural
History. And that was for the first species that
I named in 2019. They have what's called their
holotype room. So all of the fossil specimens
that are new to science and they define their
species, they normally keep in one spot, which
is fine. But most of the things that are in that
room, and you're sort of on a stage and you're
looking down at these specimens, a lot of those
bones are from these massive long -necked dinosaurs,
these sauropods. Think of Littlefoot from Land
Before Time. We're working on a different scale.
Like, my boy is not as big as those other sauropods.
So in terms of my input for that exhibition design,
I basically said, I know we call it the holotype
room, and I know this is a holotype, but can
we please not have Fur Draco there? Can we have
it in this specific museum display case so that
people can see it? Because I worked as a tour
guide at that museum for a while, and... I was
already aware that for people who have low vision,
having, you know, the biggest bone in Ferro Draco's
body is about 30 centimeters as preserved. Having
that be sort of, I don't know, four or five meters
away for someone with low vision in a room that
has sort of this like nice, but sort of atmospheric
and moody lighting would have led to a lot of
frustration. which is not what I wanted. So yeah,
for that smaller specimen, just trying to have
it where people can get up close and personal
and see it as well was one thing. And then, yeah,
I was lucky to get asked by Museums Victoria
or Melbourne Museum to just supply them with
some information on the pterosaurs that I described
from here in Victoria, which are the... geologically
oldest pterosaurs from australia as part of their
victoria the t -rex exhibit so in terms of like
the graphics and that i didn't really help with
that side of things i gave them the information
um and then yeah it was a delight to sort of
see that brought to life and a joy to know that
for the brief window of period uh the brief window
of time that was on display it got seen by somewhere
between 200 000 to 250 000 people If they turned
around and weren't too distracted by the T -Rex
that was behind them. But yeah, otherwise, Ferro
Draco is, for anyone who does a tour of the lab
at Age of Dinosaurs, Ferro Draco is mentioned
explicitly. And it's been seen by, since October
2019, like 270 ,000 people. That makes me so
proud. Like, I have said this a bunch of times.
If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I know I did
right. I know I like I partnered with a museum.
A lot of museums, they have their holotypes sort
of in a back room or in a storage area. Only
maybe three or four people get to see them a
year. Whereas the fossil that I got to work on
because they believed in me, they gave me a massive
opportunity. It has made a real difference. Those
museums, those regional communities, they really
heavily rely on paleo tourism. They rely on people
going out and visiting the area. you know, a
lot of the time they're sort of like retired,
but we also would just get so many kids who came
specifically to the museum. They begged their
parents because they love dinosaurs and they
wanted to see that stuff. Like that is super
special to me. That is the most important part
of my work. I don't really care. Like the naming
things, it does help not having that understanding
of the specimens. It does help, but seeing it
translated into something, that inspires the
next generation to be like, wow, I didn't think
you could do paleontology in this country. That
is something I'm super proud of. Yeah, these
museums are a big part of the local communities.
And I only know of one in Canada, and that's
obviously the Royal Terrell Museum. And it's
a similar thing. It's a small little community,
and their only real tourism is bringing into
that amazing museum. So yeah, that type of work
is crazy good. I also noticed, though, Besides
the fantastic work you're doing with the museums
and trying to make being like their scientific
advisor for some of these fossils, you're also
doing that for a children's book. Yeah. Remind
me as well. And I'll circle back to the current
like stuff I'm doing with Holiskia. But yes,
I've been working with a wonderful illustrator
called Andrew Plant. He's done a number of children's
books. And he wanted to make something that is
all about Ferret Draco. So it was so funny when
he first emailed me because I think Holiskia
had just been announced. And he was already well
into the process. I think he'd already pitched
things with the publisher, which is CSIRO. And
he was like, ah! just my luck as I'm, you know,
just about ready to get this or, you know, it's
like 80 % complete, you name another new species.
Well, I hope you don't mind, but we'll make it
about for a drake. And I was like, yeah, absolutely.
So I did, yeah, scientific advising with that,
working with Andrew, who anytime I've worked
with a paleo artist, the questions that they
bring. just make me level up in terms of my understanding
because they honestly ask me questions that I
just haven't thought of as a scientist. I found
the same when I was working with Peter Trusler
for the Australia Post stamp series. Some of
those emails were like 4 ,000 words of just answering
his questions, so it was super good. So yeah,
it... It also features some of the other Cretaceous
fossils that are found in Queensland. But essentially,
Ferro Draco is the main character, and I am absolutely
thrilled with that. It's just something that
I wouldn't have... If you'd told me five years
ago, or ten years ago, that a fossil that I named
would be featured in a picture book, I would
have told you not. hepped up on goofballs um
but yeah so it's it's basically done but it will
be scheduled for release in early 2026 so you
won't be able to snatch it up this christmas
but um if you follow me on socials i will definitely
be crowing about it and yeah um just to circle
back to the stuff with holistia so when when
things like So they had this new pterosaur and
they're like, all right, we need to move all
our pterosaur specimens because we've got to
try and keep them all together. But there's quite
a lot that exceeds these two display cabinets.
So initially, I just kind of modified one of
the scientific figures for a display to try and
show which bones were where on the specimen.
But I'm working with a friend, Zev Landys, on
basically trying to revamp that exhibition space.
So we, through the Regional Arts and Development
Fund, are potentially going to be going up to
Queensland to have a look at the space and really
try and figure out what can our budget handle?
Can we... incorporate some amazing 3d prints
um from some artists can we potentially sort
of get some of that artwork that gabrielle guetta
already did and have it in the space and how
do we also like tie everything together and have
a beautiful like cohesive story and then how
do we condense that down as well for younger
visitors um to have not so much like just walls
of text and information but how do we have questions
for them to engage with and get them really thinking
about what is in front of them. Yeah. There seems
to be so much outreach stuff that you're involved
with. Yeah. Just in STEM in general, including
you said already at the top that you have your
own podcast. So maybe this is a good time to
like call that out and anything else that you
really feel like needs to be really flagged right
here. Oh, okay. Well, if I don't tell you about
the book that will be out before Christmas, like,
my friend will probably tackle me into the ground.
Okay, well, I wasn't aware of it, so I didn't
know to ask. Yeah, no, that's fine. So, it's
only been announced, I think, in the last, like,
week or two, but a really good friend of mine
called Dr. Cesar Pushmeran, he is a wildlife
veterinarian. And he asked me to be part of this
amazing book called Nature People. So initially,
when he was working on it, he wanted to call
it Wardens. And, you know, it sort of features
different Australian naturalists as protectors
of the things that they work on. So for quite
a few of them, say Steve Haslam, for example.
who is the founder of Quall Headquarters. He's
trying to champion these like feisty little critters.
There's someone who's an expert at insects. We
have people working on bats as well. And then
obviously I'm a little bit different because
the things that I'm working to protect are dead.
So, you know, they're already extinct. But to
my mind, you know, fossils. fossils are a finite
resource they will never exist again and looking
after the fossils that we have and trying to
learn what we can about them especially for stuff
from the cretaceous when you have like elevated
atmospheric co2 like increased temperatures across
the board it's just interesting to see how different
animal groups respond to those conditions especially
when you've got a group say like sharks for example
when all of the families that we have today they
first popped up in the cretaceous period so you
have all of that going on but um yeah so i was
interviewed for it for a like a while ago um
but caesar did like yeah such an amazing job
it's a beautiful book he shot all of the photos
on 35 millimeter film and It honestly has like
some of my favorite photos of me in here. And
I realize I sound like a psychopath and a narcissist
to say that, but like I was wearing no makeup.
I felt so, I felt pretty burnt out when those
photos were taken, to be honest. We just had
Caesar on vet placement on our farm and then
we were going to start shearing for like three
weeks. So basically for me, that's like 12 to
14 hour days nonstop for three weeks. Plus having
to cook for everyone. Um, but yeah, like those
photos are just so light and, oh, they're, they're
amazing. Um, so that is available for pre -order
now and pre -orders, um, or the book will come
out on the 28th of November. Um, so again, that's
Nature People, uh, by Dr. Cesar Pujamaran, um,
published by Affirm Press. So yeah, super excited
for that. And then, yeah, as you said, I have
a podcast called Pals in Paleo. I don't think
I've released any new episodes this year because
I've just been in the depths and the dungeon
of thesis writing. But now that I'm sort of like
in a groggy haze, like kind of clawing my way
back into finding the new normal, hopefully there'll
be some episodes or my laptop sadly died as I
was writing my thesis as well. uh like wading
through the wreckage and trying to recover like
files and stuff has been been like it's been
in the too hard basket for a few different reasons
but i'm hoping that i can try and like salvage
some audio that i recorded but didn't like cobble
together into episodes at some point um otherwise
yeah i've been doing school visits um gave my
first keynote presentation at a school this year
which was amazing um spoken at some school assemblies
and yeah part of this program called stem pals
um so science technology engineering mathematics
pals and it's just kind of like a sweet letter
writing program i always wanted a pen pal as
a kid but now i get to do that as an adult and
basically just show kids that there are a range
of different careers you can have if you're interested
in stem but also like scientists aren't you know
just a jack -in -the -box of like they do science
like they're in the lab and then you know the
lid gets turned off and then they just power
down no we're real people we have interests um
i'm still super interested into i'm still super
into pokemon um my little gift to myself has
been trying to replay or play for the first time
soul silver the gen 2 remake on the nintendo
ds so yeah all kinds of different things that's
amazing that you're able to keep all of Most
of that still kind of juggling and finish your
thesis on top of it. But we've come to the dreaded
question, the hardest question here on Whimsical
Wavelengths, the one that I pose to every single
guest that comes on. It's the traditional last
question. What is your favorite science joke?
All right, let's keep it thematic. Why can't
you hear a pterosaur go to the bathroom? I don't
know why. Because the P is silent. Get it? Get
it? It's spelled P -T -E -R -O. Yep. It's not
the P you were thinking of, was it? Thank you
so much for coming on. And I wish you all the
best in the upcoming thesis defense. No worries.
Thank you. I'm hoping it's going to be a little
bit of fun when I have to do my, it's called
my Milestone 3 presentation. big presentation
you have to give before you submit your thesis.
One of my panel members prefaced his question
by saying, I have to ask you a question. Like,
I am mandated to ask you a question. And then
he pointed to a pterosaur toy on his desk, and
I just got to, like, let loose and pop off about
Kaiwazao Dabrowski, which is great. So I'm hoping
it has a similar energy to that. Okay, well,
that one went a little longer than I had hoped.
So I'll keep the end bits nice and short. Quite
frankly, at this very moment, I don't even know
what's coming up next. I have a couple of irons
in the fire for two different interviews. I also
have a solo episode that I've been working on,
all about the planets and the process of science.
I've also gotten back somewhat recently from
Saudi Arabia and the ensuing viral infection
that came with the plane ride. No, it wasn't
COVID, but it still knocked me out for a week.
Joys. Anyway, I'll see you in two weeks. I hope
you enjoyed this one, and by all means, subscribe,
leave me a rating, and of course, send me questions
or show ideas or whatever. Don't be afraid, tag
me on social media. Cheers. As the galaxies fly
by