The Evolution of Crocodiles
In Our Time16 Sep 2021

The Evolution of Crocodiles

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable diversity of the animals that dominated life on land in the Triassic, before the rise of the dinosaurs in the Jurassic, and whose descendants are often described wrongly as 'living fossils'. For tens of millions of years, the ancestors of alligators and Nile crocodiles included some as large as a bus, some running on two legs like a T Rex and some that lived like whales. They survived and rebounded from a series of extinction events but, while the range of habitats of the dinosaur descendants such as birds covers much of the globe, those of the crocodiles have contracted, even if the animals themselves continue to evolve today as quickly as they ever have.

With

Anjali Goswami Research Leader in Life Sciences and Dean of Postgraduate Education at the Natural History Museum

Philip Mannion Lecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences at University College London

And

Steve Brusatte Professor of Palaeontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh

Producer Simon Tillotson

Episoder(1077)

Thomas Hardy's Poetry

Thomas Hardy's Poetry

After 27 years, Melvyn Bragg has decided to step down from the In Our Time presenter’s chair. With over a thousand episodes to choose from, he has selected just six that capture the huge range and dep...

13 Jan 202250min

Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Austrian-born film director Fritz Lang (1890-1976), who was one of the most celebrated film-makers of the 20th century. He worked first in Weimar Germany, creating ...

30 Des 202155min

The Hittites

The Hittites

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the empire that flourished in the Late Bronze Age in what is now Turkey, and which, like others at that time, mysteriously collapsed. For the next three thousand years ...

23 Des 202152min

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Dickens' novella, written in 1843 when he was 31, which has become intertwined with his reputation and with Christmas itself. Ebenezer Scrooge is the miserly ev...

16 Des 202156min

The May Fourth Movement

The May Fourth Movement

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the violent protests in China on 4th May 1919 over the nation's humiliation in the Versailles Treaty after World War One. China had supported the Allies, sending worke...

9 Des 202152min

The Battle of Trafalgar

The Battle of Trafalgar

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events of 21st October 1805, in which the British fleet led by Nelson destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet in the Atlantic off the coast of Spain. Nelson's de...

2 Des 202151min

Plato's Gorgias

Plato's Gorgias

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Plato's most striking dialogues, in which he addresses the real nature of power and freedom, and the relationship between pleasure and true self-interest. As he...

25 Nov 202150min

The Decadent Movement

The Decadent Movement

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the British phase of a movement that spread across Europe in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Influenced by Charles Baudelaire and by Walter Pater, these Decadent...

18 Nov 202151min

Populært innen Historie

rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
henrettelsespodden
rss-historiske-romanser
rss-katastrofe
historier-som-endret-norge
rss-nadelose-nordmenn-gestapo
rss-benadet
sektledere
historier-som-endret-verden
aftenposten-historie
rss-frontkjemperne
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
rss-gamle-greier
med-egne-oyne
vare-historier
sannhet-eller-konspirasjon
undersattene
historiepodden-ww2
rss-alt-var-bedre-for
historiepodden