Perhaps the weirdest dinosaur ever has just been described in Nature, by The Fossil Files' own Susie Maidment. In a worldwide EXCLUSIVE*, Susie gives as the unvarnshed truth about how this spikey Jurassic weirdo came to be found, what makes it different, and peek under the hood as to how palaeontological research like this is conducted. The story weaves in the local and scientific communities in Morroco, funding crises, a global pandemic, dodgy fossil collectors, international law, and a lot of hard work.

The paper is "Extreme armour in the world’s oldest ankylosaur" by Susannah Maidment and colleagues, published in Nature August 27th, 2025.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09453-6

*Not exclusive

Widescreen artwork: Matthew Dempsey

This new discovery is WEIRD. Mirasaura (the 'marvellous lizard') has been described from the Triassic of France, and it has mad projections coming out of its back, far longer than its body. We take a look at what these projections were, and were not (i.e. not feathers), their implications for the evolution of integumentary structures, and our own historically bad haircuts.

The paper is "Triassic diapsid shows early diversification of skin appendages in reptiles" by Stephan Spiekman and colleagues, published in Nature in July 2025.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09167-9

Wide screen art: Gabriel Ugueto

Squid are a really important part of marine ecosystems, but their fossil record is close to non-existent - their squishy bodies are just really unlikely to be fossilised. In this short bonus episode we take a new look at the squid fossil record. 'Digital fossil mining' reveals a massive diversity of squid in Creataceous oceans. How did the scientists do it and what does this mean?

The paper is "Origin and radiation of squids revealed by digital fossil-mining" by Shin Ikegami and colleagues of Hokkaido University, Japan. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adu6248

The origin of our own group, the vertebrates, has received quite the shake up. One of the important fossil players has been found to be an invertebrate imposter, and this completely changes our understanding of this evolutionary episode. We take a look at why and when, and how this boils to down to a interesting question all about teeth. Did our entire skeleton come from teeth on the outside of our bodies, even before jaws existed? Is this why we now get tooth ache?

The paper is "The origin of vertebrate teeth and evolution of sensory exoskeletons" by Yara Haridy and colleagues, published in Nature in May 2025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08944-w

Wide screen art: Brian Engh.

Pterosaurs dominated Mesozoic skies but it has always been a mystery where these flying reptiles came from. This week Susie and Rob discuss Pterosaur controveries and a cool new study that attempts to solve the problem of where and how they originated. How can you do this? By looking at the climate and locations of where pterosaurs lived and their closest relatives - the weird looking lagerpetids -, we can make predictions about how pterosaurs lived, thrived, and died. And maybe even where we should be looking for them...

Figure 4 from paper shows the authors predictions where in the Triassic world would have the right climate for Pterosaurs to live (left column) and Lagerpetids to live (right column).

The paper is "Climate drivers and palaeobiogeography of lagerpetids and early pterosaurs" published by Davide Foffa and colleauges in Nature Ecology and Evolution, June 2025.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02767-8

Widescreen artwork: Gabriel Ugueto

Why do we collect fossils and who were the first fossil collectors? Cretaceious fossils have been found in a cave in Northern Spain alongside the Neanderthals that were living there 46,000 years ago. Were Neanderthals collecting fossils and if so why? This week Susie and Rob examine those claims and discuss fossil collecting and the recent surge in private trade in dinosaur fossils.

Because we are children, we also giggle at possibly one of the earliest fossils collected, the Erfoud Manuport as well as the Makapansgat pebble.

The paper is "Were Neanderthals the First Collectors? First Evidence Recovered in Level 4 of the Prado Vargas Cave, Cornejo, Burgos and Spain" by Marta Navazo Ruiz and colleagues from the University of Burgos. https://doi.org/10.3390/quat7040049

We also go on to discuss the Stegosaur fossil Apex sold, purchased and loaned to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the sale of a Ceratosaurus fossil by Utah's Museum of Ancient life.

Our evolutionary timeline just leapt back an additional 40 million years into the past. Some new fossil trackways from the early Carboniferous of Australia have been interpreted as the first bone-fide "amniotes". This is the group of egg laying vertebrates which we belong to along, with all the other mammals, birds, and reptiles. These fossils are much earlier than previously thought possible and potentially turns our understanding of this event on its head. We take a look at these fossils and the implications, in particular that there could be loads of missing things out there yet to be found, including our own ancestors and distant relatives.

Figure from the study showing the fossil footprints slab, with details of fingers/toes and claws scrapping along the surface, and fossil rain drops.

The paper is "Earliest amniote tracks recalibrate the timeline of tetrapod evolution" by John Long and colleagues, published in Nature in May 2025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08884-5

Widescreen artwork: Marcin Ambrozik..

Can we bring extinct organisms back to life? Colossal Biosciences caused quite the stir earlier this year when claimed they could do just that, and indeed have done with Dire Wolves - an extinct species of candid from North America. What is going on here? We sense check those claims and ask what they did (and did not do) as well as the broader implications of the science (pseudoscience?) of de-extinction.

The front cover of "Time" magazine - no ambiguity here about what they are saying.

Here is the phylogeny (evolutionary tree) from the paper. Dire wolves have a long branch arising from a point between Jackal/Dog/Dhole/Wolf on the one side and Bush Dog/Maned wolf on the other side.

There was a lot of press about this work, but the paper it comes from is a pre-print "On the ancestry and evolution of the extinct dire wolf" uploaded to BioRxiv in April 2025 by Gregory Gedman and Beth Shapiro of Colossal Biosciences, and colleagues, including George R. R. Martin (!).

Update: the 3 individuals are not technically clones but genetically manipulated grey wolves

https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.04.09.647074

Widescreen artwork: Colossal Biosciences