The Fossil Files

As well as tasting good, fruit play a really important role in ecosystems across the world. But when did they evolve? Were dinosaurs eating them and dispersing them? In a fossil files first, we take a look at the evolution of plants, in particular the centuries long mystery of how and when the flowering plants (angiosperms) got going. A newly described site in New Mexico yields large and varied fleshy fossil fruits which upend how we think about Cretaceous ecosystems. The fossil fruits and seeds are orders of magnitude bigger than other Cretaceous fruit, indicating an active role of animals in their consumption and dispersal in complex forest environments. We also take a look at the story from pollen to reconstruct how and when angiosperms diversified, potentially in two pulses in the Cretaceous and after the Cretaceous. Plant Power! 
The papers we look at this week are "Diversification of angiosperm reproductive strategies predated the end-Cretaceous extinction" by Jiamen Lee from Berkley and colleagues published Science in June 2026 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adw9457, "Pulsed evolution shaped extant angiosperm pollen disparity" by Yang Luo from Kunming and colleagues published in Nature Communications in January 2026 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-68253-8, and "Integrated analysis of fossils and molecular divergence time estimates a latest Jurassic origin of angiosperms" by Ruolin Wu from Bristol and colleagues published in Nature Plants in June 2026 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-026-02311-x
Wide screen art by Brian Engh. 
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The deep sea environment holds many mysteries but yields hardly any fossils. A new mindblowing finding at the bottom of the Indian ocean challenges the way we think about life in the deep and the nature of palaeontology. In 2023, a Chinese submersible exploring a 6km deep trench found 476 fossil cetaceans. These extinct whale fossils were covered with life forms previously unknown to science, and what's more, the fossils ranged in age from recent to 5 million years old. How did they get there? Why so many? Can fossils really accumulate in the same place for 5 million years, and just…. sit there? 
This week's paper is "A 5.3-million-year-old deep-sea whale necropolis in the Diamantina Zone" by Xiaotong Peng and colleagues, published in Nature in June 2026 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10546-z
Wide screen includes picture from Global Trend.

Studying for a PhD is in an important step towards becoming a scientist, but the process of finding and applying for a PhD programme is mysterious and inaccessible. In this bonus episode Susie and Rob discuss some tips and ideas to demystify the process. Is a PhD right for you? How do you find the right supervisor and project? What are universities looking for in your application? What questions are you going to face in the interview? This a preview of our bonus episode, the full episode can be found on our Patreon. For further related content, check out our episode "How to become palaeontologist" (#26).

Where, when, and how did the animals first appear? The fossil record holds some tantalising insights from well-preserved sites in Canada, Australia, Russia (and Leicester). This week we are joined by Dr Emily Mitchell of the University of Cambridge to discuss how to find these fascinating Ediacaran fossils, what they mean, and how they evolved. Did they move? Were they left-handed? Did they have sex? Where are they hiding? This is a story that includes lasers, school children, lichens, and bees.  
The papers discussed this week are "Earliest evidence of behavioural handedness in the Ediacaran motile bilaterian Spriggina floundersi" by Scott Evans and colleagues published in Science Reports in July 2026 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-53857-x, and "Discovery of White Sea assemblage fossils from Laurentia" by Scott Evans and colleagues published in Science Advances in May 2026 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aed9916
We also continue of our discussion of last episodes's paper, "The influence of reproductive mode on resource competition and diversity patterns in Ediacaran early animal communities" by Emily Mitchell and Andrea Manica published in Nature Ecology and Evolution in June 2026 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03094-2

The first animals turned up in the Ediacaran as simple frond-like organisms that didn't do much of anything. Why was this Pre-Cambrian 'Avalonian biota' so static and boring for 12-20 million years before animals started diversifying, moving and becoming more complex? This week we look at a new paper that reconstructs the ecology of the early Avalonian biota, in particular their sexual and and asexual reproductions strategies. To try and figure out what kind of sex these organisms were (or weren't) having, we need to do turn to some interesting maths based on their locations of the fossil surface. This unlocks all sorts of interesting evolutionary dynamics, potentially explaining how animals started to diversify after increasing sexual reproduction and competition in an increasingly dynamic and changeable environment. Life needed chaos! (and sex).
This week's paper is "The influence of reproductive mode on resource competition and diversity patterns in Ediacaran early animal communities" by Emily Mitchell and Andrea Manica published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, published June 2026 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03094-2
We also mention another paper by Scott Evans (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aed9916) and the story of the discovery of the Ediacaran fossils in Charnwood fossil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Negus
Wide screen art by Hugo Salais.