Podcast 293 - This Episode Doesn't Suck

The gang looks at two papers that compare similar structures in unrelated animals to see if there might be evidence of convergence. The first paper compares Spinosaurus to phytosaurs and the second paper compares the hyoid bone of ichthyosaurs and toothed whales. Meanwhile, Curt will try it, James waits for something that never happens, and Amanda has a surprise.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look to see if animals that are not close are the same in ways because of what they do. The first paper looks at too old and dead big angry animals. Both of these animals look like angry animals today that move in water, and so this paper is looking to see if maybe they were both doing the same thing as what we see today. The paper doesn't come to a strong end, but it looks like maybe these things are doing things that maybe are not always the same as the things that live today that they look like. The second paper looks at two animals that need air but move in the water all the time, one group that is living today and one that has been dead for a very very long time. There is a hard part in them that in the groups that are living today they can use to suck in water to get food to them. People had thought that the old group could have done this too. They looked at this hard part that lets things suck, and they found that the hard part in this old dead group would not let them suck. So these old dead animals would have to get food in a different way than the group living today.   References: Yun, Chan-gyu. "SPINOSAURS AS PHYTOSAUR MIMICS: A CASE OF CONVERGENT EVOLUTION BETWEEN TWO EXTINCT ARCHOSAURIFORM CLADES." Acta Palaeontologica Romaniae 20.1 (2024). Delsett, Lene Liebe, et al. "Is the hyoid a constraint on innovation? A study in convergence driving feeding in fish-shaped marine tetrapods." Paleobiology 49.4 (2023): 684-699.