Fossil Frenemies

From friends to enemies to roommates (to lovers??), we discuss classic examples of animals found fossilized together, how that happens, and how some of the interpretations are… a stretch.

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Animal death, dead babies, lubed holes, incest, cursing 

Images From the Episode

References

Mead, A. J. (2000). Sexual dimorphism and paleoecology in Teleoceras, a North American Miocene rhinoceros. Paleobiology, 26(4), 689-706.

Tucker, S. T., Otto, R. E., Joeckel, R. M., & Voorhies, M. R. (2014). The geology and paleontology of Ashfall Fossil Beds, a late Miocene (Clarendonian) mass-death assemblage, Antelope County and adjacent Knox County, Nebraska, USA. 

Fernandez, V., Abdala, F., Carlson, K. J., Cook, D. C., Rubidge, B. S., Yates, A., & Tafforeau, P. (2013). Synchrotron reveals Early Triassic odd couple: injured amphibian and aestivating therapsid share burrow. PLoS One, 8(6), e64978.

Liu, J., Shu, D., Han, J., Zhang, Z., & Zhang, X. (2008). Origin, diversification, and relationships of Cambrian lobopods. Gondwana Research, 14(1-2), 277-283.

Vannier, J., & Martin, E. L. (2017). Worm-lobopodian assemblages from the early Cambrian Chengjiang biota: insight into the “pre-arthropodan ecology”?. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 468, 373-387.

 Zhao, Y., Wang, M., LoDuca, S. T., Yang, X., Yang, Y., Liu, Y., & Cheng, X. (2018). Paleoecological Significance of Complex Fossil Associations of the Eldonioid Pararotadiscus guizhouensis with other Faunal Members of the Kaili Biota (Stage 5, Cambrian, South China). Journal of Paleontology, 92(6), 972-981.

Dzik, Jerzy, Zhao Yuanlong, and Zhu Maoran. "Mode of life of the Middle Cambrian eldonioid lophophorate Rotadiscus." Palaeontology 40.2 (1997): 385-396.