Podcast 225 - Columbo Meets the Caiman

The gang discusses two papers that look at how trace fossils can give important clues to ancient ecological interactions. The first paper identifies a unique behavior using trace fossils, and the second paper uses bite marks on bone to infer ontogenetic ecological shifts in a large caiman species. Meanwhile, Curt investigates, Amanda collects, and James fixates.   Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): This week our friends talk about animals that roll in wet tiny pieces of rock that are really very tiny tiny. We also talk about a very big very slow animal with hair that got bit by a very large animal with no hair but hard skin and lots of big teeth that has a very long face. The animal with hair that rolled in wet tiny very very tiny pieces of rock shows that these animals did this thing a very long time ago; it shows that these animals with hair and two fingers on each leg were in this place at this time, along with animals with stuff that wasn't hair but made of the same stuff as hair and could fly, too. The second paper looks at how we can talk about a hard part of a very big very slow animal with hair could have gotten grabbed by a small one of a very, very, very big animal with no hair but hard skin and lots of big teeth with a very long face. It tells us that these very big animals with no hair but hard skin and lots of big teeth ate different things when they were small than when they were very, very, very big.   References: Abbassi, Nasrollah, et al. "Vertebrate  footprints and a mammal mud-bath trace fossil (Laspichnia) from the  Mukdadiya Formation (Late Miocene–Pliocene), Chamchamal Area, Kurdistan  Region, Northeast Iraq." Ichnos 28.1 (2021): 72-83. Pujos, François, and Rodolfo  Salas-Gismondi. "Predation of the giant Miocene caiman Purussaurus on a  mylodontid ground sloth in the wetlands of proto-Amazonia." Biology Letters 16.8 (2020): 20200239.