Travis went to Europe and Alyssa went to Chattanooga. All to find out more about your favourite fossils. We bring you some news on extraordinary palaeo discoveries, a fascinating interview with Dr Indrani Mukherjee about the state of geoscience in Australia and her research into Earth's earliest life, and Alyssa ranks 2025's big hits (come at her).

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Tess Gallagher, Dan Folkes, Michael Pittman, Tom G. Kaye, Glenn W. Storrs, Jason Schein; Fossilized melanosomes reveal colour patterning of a sauropod dinosaur. R Soc Open Sci. 1 December 2025; 12 (12): 251232. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.251232

Delclòs, X., Peñalver, E., Jaramillo, C. et al. Cretaceous amber of Ecuador unveils new insights into South America’s Gondwanan forests. Commun Earth Environ 6, 745 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02625-2

Dinosaur mating? Two new tyrannosaurs? We discuss a couple of groundbreaking papers followed by a trip to Wellington Caves, the site of some of Australia's earliest and greatest palaeontological discoveries.

More info:

Join us in Adelaide for Fossils and Fiction live on November 29! https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/1964100016020?aff=oddtdtcreator

Visit Wellington Caves https://www.wellingtoncaves.com.au/

Bertozzo, F., Tanke, D. H., Conti, S., Manucci, F., Arnott, G., Godefroit, P., Ruffell, A., Fowler, D., Freedman Fowler, E. A., Bolotsky, I. Y., Bolotsky, Y. L., & Murphy, E. (2025). Deciphering causes and behaviors: A recurrent pattern of tail injuries in hadrosaurid dinosaurs. iScience, 113739. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113739

Zanno, L. E., & Napoli, J. G. (2025). Nanotyrannus and Tyrannosaurus coexisted at the close of the Cretaceous. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09801-6

Seals. What do they know? Do they know things? Let's find out.

Dr James Rule gives lets us in on the secrets of the seals, covering their evolution, fossil history, and some challenges with modern marine mammal research. James tells us the best and worst seal and lays down the terms to the whales. Also, it's Halloween, so we take a look at some creepy museum exhibitions.

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Flynn, A. G., Brusatte, S. L., Chiarenza, A. A., García, J., Davis, A. J., Secord, R., Shelley, S., Weil, A., Heizler, M. T., Williamson, T. E., & Peppe, D. J. (2025). Late-surviving New Mexican dinosaurs illuminate high end-Cretaceous diversity and provinciality.

Sereno, P. C., Saitta, E. T., Vidal, D., Myhrvold, N., Real, M. C., Baumgart, S. L., Bop, L. L., Keillor, T. M., Eriksen, M., & Derstler, K. (2025). Duck-billed dinosaur fleshy midline and hooves reveal terrestrial clay-template “mummification.” Science, science.adw3536. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adw3536