Dragonflies and damselflies are incredible insects. They are arguably the world’s most skilled fliers, arguably the world’s most successful predators, and arguably the best insects (so says David). Not only that, they and their ancient cousins have been abundant and successful aerial predators for over 300 million years. This episode, we discuss what sets these bugs apart from all the rest, we explore what’s known of their evolution from their surprisingly good fossil record, and of course we highlight their most famous extinct cousins: the giant griffenflies.
In the news: croc habitats, tyrannosaur food, elephant trunks, and early mosquitos.
Time markers:
Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00
News: 00:04:30
Main discussion, Part 1: 00:34:15
Main discussion, Part 2: 01:13:15
Patron question: 01:53:45
Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more:
http://commondescentpodcast.com/
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The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome.
More music like this at http://ocremix.org.
Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Episode 58 - The Bone Wars
Episode 57 - Evolution of Flowering Plants (Angiosperms)
Sloth Chat Livestream 2018
Episode 56 – The Evolution of Evolutionary Theory
Episode 55 - The "Sixth Extinction" (Modern Biodiversity Crisis)
Episode 54 - Alfred Russell Wallace
Episode 53 - The Baculum (Penis Bone)
Episode 52 – Sounds of the Past (Fossil Bioacoustics)
End of the Year Q&A 2018
Episode 51 - Mosasaurs
Episode 50 - Australia
Episode 49 - Fake Fossils
Episode 48 - Sharks
Episode 47 - Early Synapsids ("Proto-Mammals")
Spook-E - Zombies
Episode 46 - Cryptozoology
Spook-E - Fish-People
Spook-E - Werewolves
Episode 45 – The Permian Extinction (“The Great Dying”)
Spook-E - Vampires
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