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

Avsnitt(1077)

Authenticity

Authenticity

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what it means to be oneself, a question explored by philosophers from Aristotle to the present day, including St Augustine, Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Sartre. In Hamle...

14 Mars 201950min

William Cecil

William Cecil

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact on the British Isles of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, the most poweful man in the court of Elizabeth I. He was both praised and attacked for his flexib...

7 Mars 201951min

Antarah ibn Shaddad

Antarah ibn Shaddad

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, works, context and legacy of Antarah (525-608AD), the great poet and warrior. According to legend, he was born a slave; his mother was an Ethiopian slave, hi...

28 Feb 201949min

Pheromones

Pheromones

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how members of the same species send each other invisible chemical signals to influence the way they behave. Pheromones are used by species across the animal kingdom i...

21 Feb 201949min

Judith beheading Holofernes

Judith beheading Holofernes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how artists from the Middle Ages onwards have been inspired by the Bible story of the widow who killed an Assyrian general who was besieging her village, and so saved h...

14 Feb 201949min

Aristotle's Biology

Aristotle's Biology

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable achievement of Aristotle (384-322BC) in the realm of biological investigation, for which he has been called the originator of the scientific study of lif...

7 Feb 201950min

Owain Glyndwr

Owain Glyndwr

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life of the Welsh nobleman, also known as Owen Glendower, who began a revolt against Henry IV in 1400 which was at first very successful. Glyndwr (c1359-c1415) ado...

31 Jan 201948min

Emmy Noether

Emmy Noether

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and life of one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, Emmy Noether. Noether’s Theorem is regarded as one of the most important mathematical theo...

24 Jan 201948min

Populärt inom Historia

motiv
massmordarpodden
historiska-brott
p3-historia
historiepodden-se
olosta-mord
historianu-med-urban-lindstedt
rss-massmordarpodden
rss-seriemordarpodden
rss-brottsligt
konspirationsteorier
krigshistoriepodden
podme-bio-4
nu-blir-det-historia
harrisons-dramatiska-historia
rss-arkiv-stieg
militarhistoriepodden
rss-folkets-historia
palmemordet
rss-historien-om