Episode description

Many groups of Mesozoic plants are still around today so the landscapes in which the dinosaurs lived would have looked at least vaguely familiar to anyone who might be (un)lucky enough to travel back in time 150 million years. Still, plants are typically rather squishier than dinosaur bones and so their fossils are often rare. In this episode we welcome Dr Susannah Lydon to the pod to tackle the subject of plants at the time of the dinosaurs. Susie is an expert in fossil plants from the Mesozoic and so is a perfect guest to fill in the frankly colossal gap in Dave’s knowledge of plant life from this Era. Although we have talked about dinosaur diets and feeding strategies before, we really haven’t looked at the plants themselves in any detail. So this time out we’ll be talking ferns, horsetails, mosses, ginkoes and the origins of flowers and with very little on dinosaurs, but all of it relevant to understanding how these animals lived and evolved.

Once again there was a slight glitch with Dave's sound about 45 mins in so if he sounds weirder than usual that is why. Iszi has done her best to edit around it. ALSO: we do mention public lice but do not mention what they are exactly. So, if kids listen, you may get an awkward question. We do NOT explain how they are spread or anything other than they are lice and are endangered.

You can find Susie on Twitter: @susieoftraken and she has a range of posts available on her old blog here (https://susieoftraken.wordpress.com) and from her stint as on the Guardian’s science bloggers here (https://www.theguardian.com/profile/susannah-lydon).