Podcast 312 - Sick Skateboard Tricks

The gang discusses two papers about the ecology of sauropods. The first paper investigates the biomechanics of the Plateosaurus tail, and the second paper looks at direct evidence of sauropod diet from gut contents. Meanwhile, James “makes it interesting”, Amanda may have recorded on the wrong microphone, Curt makes a bold rebrand, and everyone vaguely remembers “Denver: The Last Dinosaur”.

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

The friends talk about two papers that look at animals with along necks from a long time ago that kids love and were in a movie where one of them called Little Foot went to a great low place between big places. The first paper looks at one of the oldest groups of animals with long necks that had really long things coming out of their bottoms. Some animals use these long things to match how heavy and long their necks are, but some use these long things to hit other animals. Since this group did not have a lot of things to hit other animals that may try to eat them, it would make sense that maybe they used their long things off their bottom to do it. They look at other animals from today and the past to see if this animal could use its long thing from its bottom to hit other animals. And they find that it could.

The second paper looks at what one of these long neck animals would eat. They find some parts of one of these animals that died when it was eating, and the bits that it ate were still in its body when it died. They find bits and pieces of things that can make their own food, and they also find that the animal was not very good at breaking up its food in its mouth.

References:

Poropat, Stephen F., et al. "Fossilized gut contents elucidate the feeding habits of sauropod dinosaurs." Current Biology 35.11 (2025): 2597-2613.

Filek, Thomas, et al. "Tail of defence: an almost complete tail skeleton of Plateosaurus (Sauropodomorpha, Late Triassic) reveals possible defence strategies." Royal Society Open Science 12.5 (2025): 250325.