WEBVTT - Ep. 701: MeatEater Radio Live! The Dinosaur Highway and 100 Humans v. 1 Gorilla 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:04.320 Smell us. 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:26.520 Now, Welcome to Meet Eater Trivia mea podcast. Welcome to 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:29.720 Meet Eater Radio live at eleven am Mountain Time. That's 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.479 neon o'clock for our friends in Quincy, Illinois on Thursday, 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.360 May eighth, and we're live for Meat Eater Edge. Qan Bozeman. 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:39.000 I'm your host, Spencer new Art, joined today by Ryan 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:42.960 Callahan and Randall Williams. On today's show, we'll interview Duncan 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.800 Murdoch about the dinosaur Highway that was just discovered in England, 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.600 followed by a turkey report from the Meat Eater crew. 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.840 Then we've got one minute fishing with Seth Morris. After 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.560 that we'll do show and tell, and finally we'll interview 0:00:55.600 --> 0:01:00.800 Alex Fogg about constructing the world's largest artificial reef. Now, 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:02.720 in case you don't think this is a live show, 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:05.440 we just got breaking news that there's a new pope 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.080 that's been elected. What's your insight on this, Randall White. 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:14.680 Smoke from that's all. I watched Steve watch Conclave on 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:15.920 a plane last week. 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:22.479 So okay, yeah, all right, But but we're gonna settle 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.600 an internet debate that's taken the Internet by storm. Here recently. 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.480 Every now and then, some stupid thing on the Internet 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:31.120 achieves exit velocity and makes it out into the real 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.560 world like it is a hot dog, a sandwich, or 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.440 the hawk to a girl. It happened again this week, 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:42.120 and that was can one hundred humans beat a gorilla, 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.360 a singular gorilla in a fight to the death? Yes, 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.760 I have strong feelings about this randal. What do you think? 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:51.639 Randall has come today with a notepad that I believe 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.120 contains notes on this on this subject, I. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.400 Do I I don't think it's a very interesting question. 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:02.080 I think the the numbers, the sheer numbers, and the 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.480 fatigue factor. But I'd like to just use this moment 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:11.320 to bolster that opinion. With my qualifications as an all 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:13.920 around great ape enthusiast, Phil, will you pull up Exhibit 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.440 one please? Whenever I'm at a zoo, I like to 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.000 go visit the great Apes. On the left is Grill 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.960 World at Cincinnati Zoo. On the right, I don't even 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.239 know which zoo I was at there. That was twenty 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.639 twenty two, wow, and I didn't go back to check 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.160 my travel calendar. But as you can see there, it 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.640 says test your grill IQ and I did rather well 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:33.160 that day. 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:34.400 How do we know? 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:36.600 You just have to trust me. 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.880 Okay, but so many zoos and checked out so many 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.519 apes that he doesn't even know what zoo he was at. 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.160 Yes, Phil, if you'll pull up the next slide please, 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.839 This is a bizarre image one of my favorite sort 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.360 of freak discoveries in the course of my dissertation research. 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:58.360 This is an ad for the Ruger forty four magnum carbing. 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:00.680 It's like the forty four magnum version of a ten 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.239 twenty two. And they thought the best way to demonstrate 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.400 the utility of this is with an image of a 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.840 man and a gorilla. That is, it's amazing in somewhere 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.240 in Central Africa. I had just took a picture of 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:16.840 it with my phone, and I've never had a chance 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.160 to display it to the world. So here it is. 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:22.600 We used to live in a very weird place, Phil, 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.640 Exhibit three. Here. Oh, so this is a sequence of 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.560 photos taken at the Cincinnati Zoo. That's not my child, 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.600 but just a random child, a good friend's child. No, 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:37.320 we're taking a photo with this friend here and suddenly 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:40.200 if only we've been filming video, because suddenly he charged 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.680 us and he slapped the glass in what might be 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:49.120 the most frightening sudden surprise of my life. It sounded 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.360 like someone just shot a gun next to my head. 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.120 Okay, we're learning Randall is indeed a subject matter expert. 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:58.320 Yes, I've also read Gorillas in the Mist. And then 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.800 to prep for this segment, I I didn't have time 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:05.600 to watch the movie Congo Oh, so I downloaded it 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:08.640 on Kindle and I read sixty seven percent of it. Okay, 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:12.760 I shared some of my thoughts with Phil, but it 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.240 is one of our culture's greatest meditations on the gorilla's 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.840 capacity for violence. So I didn't really get anything out 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.960 of that. And then I brought this T shirt. Okay, 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.760 this is from the San Diego This is. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.760 All part of answering the question on if one hundred 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:30.480 humans could beat a gorilla in a fight. 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:32.560 Yeah, and I just think a gorilla. You know, it's 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.800 five and a half feet tall, four hundred pounds. It's 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.480 got a powerful sagital crest that allows its jaw muscles 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:43.240 to exert sort of unbelievable pressure on any sort of 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:45.320 thing that finds its way into its mouth. But yeah, 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:46.440 I don't think he can do it. I think you 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:47.080 just get tired. 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:51.120 I fully agree. I don't think it's even It wouldn't 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.159 even be close to a fair fight. One hundred is 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.400 such a big number. Yeah, one hundred humans, it's not fun. 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:58.800 I think the debate should be what's the number where 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.160 it actually gets competitive? My gas is like ten to fifteen. 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:04.320 Do you think a dozen humans? 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:06.360 No, you think a gorilla would win? 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.360 I think I was going to say twenty. 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:10.520 Figure the reach. A girl has got a wingspan of 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:14.599 about eight feet. I mean you look at chimps. I 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.160 mean chimps just tear people apart. 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:20.440 Yes, I think what would be on our side is 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.760 I can't imagine they have great stamina also or and 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.240 but my problem with it would be I can't identify 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:30.440 a weak point on a gorilla. No where do you go. 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:31.720 You just got to punch them in the head over 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:32.040 and over. 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.960 And they have extremely thick skulls. Their brain case is 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:37.880 not nearly as large as arms, so there's a lot 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.640 more bone around it. And they don't have you know, 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.400 in a fight, you're always talking about reach. Girls got 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.880 us and they don't have chins, so they can't have 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:48.640 a you know, like a. 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:49.719 Boxer find the button. 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.040 Yeah, exactly do they do they. 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.640 Have exposed testicles, like, that's probably not a weak point 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:56.640 either for them, if you were if you were really 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:01.280 trying to think, trying to make sure that gross, they're 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:01.760 just tiny. 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:02.120 Sorry. 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:04.560 Yeah, I just didn't think it was that interesting with questions, 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:06.680 so I just wrote down a bunch of gorilla stuff 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:07.400 about my history. 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:07.600 Oh. 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.800 I also forgot to mention when I was I would 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.640 have been nine years old, my parents adopted a zoo baby, 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:16.960 you know, like adopting. It's an Eastern Lowland gorilla. Female 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.039 adopted it for you at the Cincinnati Zoo, right or 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.760 was it for them? For me, it was a birthday 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.080 or Christmas gift. That's how much I love gorillas. I 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:26.880 also spent a good deal with my younger years of 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.280 walking around on my knuckles, and I can still here 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:31.120 today pretty effectively. 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:34.000 Cal an the clip. Any thoughts on one hundred humans 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:35.680 versus a grilla in a fight to the death. 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:39.520 Yeah, I thought the movie Congo was great, probably underrated 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:44.839 by cinophiles amy. 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:44.839 All that stuff. 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:47.440 Yeah, yeah, I don't. 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:49.200 But by the time I saw a lot of those movies, 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.479 they had already seemed kind of like outdated to me, 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.160 and not not in a great way, but yeah, they're 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:55.080 entertaining for sure. 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:55.480 Okay. 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.000 The biggest shock to me from a revisiting the book 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:02.960 is that it's set in nineteen seventy iron, So it's 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.240 just you read it as a period piece, then you 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:07.600 remember that he wrote it in nineteen eighty, and you 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.520 thank god it's it's it's actually very cutting edge. 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.960 So I think where anybody doing battle with the Gorilla 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:19.080 would really fall short is there's not a lot of 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:25.600 like trained fighting sports where you're counting on somebody biting you, right, 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:27.800 I mean that's a that's a big, big part of the. 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:29.880 Grilla development as a discipline. 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:30.400 Yeah. 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.480 Yeah, Now, as as this debate got heated up online, 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.320 there was a tweet that went viral by someone. Phil 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.840 is going to pull it up here. They built out 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.720 their roster of one hundred people of who they would 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.120 want to fight the Gorilla. Here's some folks that were 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.800 on that list. This tweet got sixteen million views. Fifty 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:55.040 in his prime Turtleman, I love Turtleman, the Undertaker, the wrestler, 0:07:55.080 --> 0:08:00.800 of course, Nicola Jokic's brothers, Jason Momoa, a random high 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:04.520 school defensive coordinator, slash history teacher and at number eleven 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:08.440 in this tweet was Steve Ranella. Steve Varnella made the roster. 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:09.960 One ahead of Saquon Barkley. 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:10.200 Yeah. 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:11.760 I don't think he has the frame for it. 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.920 No, No, would you guys want Steve on your your team? 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:21.160 This is just an ode to Steve. It's not or ability. 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.360 Only if Steve was charged with wearing it down in 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.239 some sort of chase through hilly country. 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:27.200 Yeah. 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.600 Yeah, like if there was a debate at the beginning 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:34.000 that Steve could engage the gorilla on Yeah. Yeah, possibly 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:38.320 using the communication device and hands signals from the movie Congo. 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.280 It's not in the book. In the book, they're just 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.840 doing old fashioned American sign language. That's an element. 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:47.520 When I lived back in South Dakota, I played town 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.720 team baseball, which is like from eighteen years old up 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.080 until whenever you retire, some guys playing into their forties. 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:54.040 Yeah, that's beautiful. 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:55.920 There was a fan who would come to every game 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:58.760 and if he'd see you around town, he'd maybe throw 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.360 you a compliment. He'd say, oh, Spencer looking strong today. 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:04.640 And I always like that that. That's a very nice 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:06.520 compliment to give to another man. I gave that to 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.559 Steve one day. I said, Steve looking strong today, and 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:11.680 he didn't care for it. He said, what do you 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.960 want to arm wrestle me or what? So, you know 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:16.880 maybe what Freud. 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:18.360 Would say about that, If. 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.600 The gorilla can get Steve worked up, maybe maybe Steve 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.520 would be acceptable on this roster as number eleven in 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:29.440 the gorilla fighting cage manage. All right, we've determined that 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.480 one hundred humans would easily dominate that gorilla, and we 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:34.120 think the numbers closer to like twenty. 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.120 Well, sorry, I know you're head for a segue here, Spencer, 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.760 I'm gonna throw it off completely. Do you think how 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.760 many humans would we lose in the process? 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:45.560 Oh? I thought about this to a dozen? No, I 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:46.840 think thirty thirty. 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:48.200 You think he'd rip through thirty. 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.240 I think you lose thirty percent of that roster at 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:56.240 game time, like they just go no, No, I. 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.440 Think the initial ten minutes. I just don't. I can't 0:09:58.440 --> 0:09:58.960 imagine what. 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:01.840 I think. It depends if the fighting happens like a 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:06.480 Jackie Chan movie where the warriors come at them and 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.839 they like wait their turn. Yeah, we'll lose thirty for sure, 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.840 but we could probably suffocate this thing with like fifteen people. 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.720 The strength is just I don't think he can't. 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:18.440 He can't punch fifteen people at once. 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:20.280 I think he could. I think he. 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:22.640 Could just physically tear them apart. 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:23.959 I think he could hook us. 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.640 Oh yeah, I'm just saying I don't care who you are. 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.000 Like you get in the in the cage with a gorilla. 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.160 There's a large part of that roster that's gonna be, like, 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:35.719 you know what, not worth it. 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:36.760 Yeah, not gonna happen. 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.640 And Google says that their testicles and penis are quite 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.320 hidden and small as far as primates go, so we 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.040 can't count on that, yeah advantage. 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.880 Yeah, it's it's part of one of the issues with 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.200 their genetic depth. Small wieners. 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.520 Right. Moving on, Joining us on the line first is 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.880 Duncan Murdoch, a paleontologist from the University of Oxford Museum 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:02.679 of Natural History. He's here to talk about the Dinosaur 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.880 Highway that was just discovered in England. Donkey, Welcome to 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:06.200 the show. 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:08.640 Hello, Mornie, how are you. 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.480 We're good? First thing, doc in tell us how these 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.040 two hundred tracks that came to be known as the 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:15.880 Dinosaur Highway were discovered. 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:21.440 Yeah, absolutely, So there's a quarry in the center of 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.600 England near the city of Oxford where I am, where 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.400 they're removing limestone to crush it up to useless gravel. 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.640 And when they were removing that, they were slowly scraping 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:37.120 off a layer of clay and the bucket on the 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:41.360 dig felt a series of little bumps, so they thought, oh, 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.160 that's strange, so they called us in from the museum 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:45.920 to have a look at them, and we verified that 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.920 they were in fact dinosaur footprints, and then we mounted 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:55.200 an excavation to uncover the whole site and yeah, we 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.840 found over two hundred individual prints from probably five different 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:00.960 individual animals. 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.800 That's wonderful now to describe how big the tracks are 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:05.480 and how long this highway is. 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.520 So most of them are are one kind of dinosaur, 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.720 and they form these oval shapes that are about three 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:21.040 feet long by about two feet wide and about nine 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:25.880 inches deep something like that. But we see literally hundreds 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.120 of these prints and they go The longest trackway is 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:32.760 at least one hundred and fifty meters long, so it's 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:37.120 a huge area that's crisscrossed with all these individual tracks. 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:39.360 And how old are the tracks and what kind of 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:40.440 dinosaur has made them. 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:45.320 So this surface is from the middle part of the 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.720 Jurassic Period, which is about one hundred and sixty six 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:52.640 million years ago. At the time, it would have been 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:56.080 a kind of lagoon near the edge of a continent. 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.120 We see two different shape footprints, so most of them, 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.040 like the one you're seeing on the screen, are quite rare, 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.840 but most of them are these kind of oval shapes 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.800 that would have been from a large bodied, four legged, 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:15.040 long neck dinosaur, think something like a diplodocus or a brontosaurus. Yeah, 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.480 just like that one there on the screen. And then 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:22.280 we rarely see these three toad prints. If you've ever 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.040 seen footprints of a wading bird on a beach, you 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:28.400 see these three toad prints. We see exactly that, and 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:30.800 they were from a very different kind of animal, the 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:36.559 two legged, carnivorous meat eating theropod dinosaur called Megalosaurus. 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:41.040 And does this area in England heavy history of dinosaur discovery. 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:42.280 Yeah. 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:47.320 Absolutely. In fact, the first dinosaur ever named Megalosaurus. The 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:51.360 fossils came from a little village called stones Field, just 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.840 a few miles from where we find these footprints, in 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:56.080 eighteen twenty four. 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:56.959 It was first name. 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.720 So just over two hundred years ago, so dinosaur science 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.160 it's elf actually started here in Oxfordshire and it was 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.200 really exciting that two hundred years later were still finding 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.319 evidence about these animals in the form of their footprints 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:11.120 in this quarry and. 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.720 How long was the excavation process and what did that 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:14.160 look like? 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.959 Okay, So we first discovered these prints a couple of 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.240 years ago and we uncovered a small number of them, 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:26.000 realized it was a much bigger undertaking, so we put 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.240 together a team between the University of Oxford and the 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.560 University of Birmingham. Was myself, my colleague doctor m and Nichols, 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:37.760 my colleagues Professor Kirsty Edgar, Professor Richard Butler in Birmingham, 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:41.400 and we then put together a team of about one 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.680 hundred people over the course of a week where we 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.640 went out every day. Most of the time we were 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.640 painstakingly removing a layer of clay that fills and covers 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:56.040 these prints to uncover the hard limestone underneath, so carefully 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.560 removing it with trowels and then sponging out the clay, 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.840 eventually uncovering the whole site. Then there's a process of 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:08.520 documentation where we took literally tens of thousands of photographs 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.920 to try and capture every single print, as well as 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.320 flying drones to capture the entire site and image the 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:18.840 whole thing before it's then reburied. 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.240 Now, you said that this area was a lagoon one 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.280 hundred and sixty six million years ago. Talk more about 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.360 what England as a whole looked like at that period. 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:29.720 How that's different from today. 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:33.640 Yeah, that's a really good question. So around say one 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:35.600 hundred and sixt six million years ago, in the middle 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.840 of the Jurassic, the continents as we know them today 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.200 were starting to form. So there used to be this 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.440 huge continent called Pangaea where pretty much all the continental 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.720 land masses were together through the early part of the Jurassic, 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.080 and these continents were breaking apart, so things like the 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:59.080 Atlantic Ocean were forming. This created lots of volcanism, lots 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:04.080 of volcano erupting in the rifting, and it created these 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.960 shallow inland seaways that were forming as this continent was 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.080 breaking apart. So England at the time in the middle 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:17.320 Jurassic was underneath one of these shallow seaways. So if 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.760 you imagine something like the Florida Keys today or the 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:26.400 Bahamas Bank where you have these shallow seas with these 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:31.120 beautiful clear waters with white sand being deposited, and nearby 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:36.400 you have rivers washing materially into kind of in mangrove swamps, 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:40.960 producing these lagoons behind where you get these sheltered environments. 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.080 And it's in one of these lagoon environments that these 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:46.960 dinosaurs were walking along, walking along what would have been 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.080 a coastline one hundred and sixty six million years ago. 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:54.280 Okay, so there were multiple dinosaurs who created this dinosaur highway. 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:57.520 Do you think those dinosaurs interacted or was you know, 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.640 these separated by potentially days years. 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.040 Yeah, So the conditions needed to form these prints are 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.080 very rare. So you need the mud to be just right. 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.240 If you have mud that's too wet, then when you 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:13.840 pull your foot out, it's just going to fill back 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.960 in that hole. If the MUD's too dry, then even 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:21.280 a tent on animal like Ctosaurus can't make a lasting impression. 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:25.359 So we think these surfaces were only just right for 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:30.560 probably a matter of weeks, maybe months, certainly within one season. 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.879 So what we do find is lots of most of 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.600 the prints are from the same kind of dinosaur, but 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.800 we find lots of different sizes so there's potential evidence 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:43.240 that these animals were moving in herds, showing a kind 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:48.080 of herding behavior with different individuals of different ages moving around. 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:54.960 Then the therapod princes meat eating Megalosaurus, they cross where 0:17:55.080 --> 0:18:00.159 we see these larger herbivorous animals walking along. Although we 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:04.440 don't see any direct interaction between them, it's pretty safe 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.360 to assume that if you're a big meat eating dinosaur, 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.520 you're going to look for big plant eating dinosaurs to 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:15.040 prey upon. So there's a potential that we have interactions 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.280 between predator and prey, but we can't be sure because 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.600 all we're seeing these individual prints. But what we can 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.360 say is each one of those footprints is a single 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.600 moment in the life of an extinct animal. So we 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.840 get this amazing unique window into that very moment when 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:34.119 that animal put that foot in that exact location, and 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:36.000 you can go and put your foot in exactly the 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.119 same place. It's absolutely thrilling to do. 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.160 So from their brief window, what sorts of things can 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:42.640 paleontalogists learn. 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.000 So we're able to do things like reconstruct the environment 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:48.800 that these animals are living in. So as well as 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:55.480 the dinosaur footprints, we find smaller fossils, we find seashells, 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.920 we find bits of wood. We can also do things 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.639 that work out how fast these animals might have been moving. 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:03.760 So most of them seem to be moving at a 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.800 kind of average human walking pace, and so none of 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:11.000 them are going very fast. And we can estimate body 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:15.600 sizes from the spacing of the prince within the biggest 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:19.800 individuals for probably about sixteen meters long for the herbivores 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:24.960 and about eight or nine meters for the carnivores. And 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.760 we can also observe these interactions between species, so we 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:32.199 know that these two different species of dinosaur were in 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.760 the same place at roughly the same time, so we 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.280 can start to build a more complex picture of the 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.400 whole environment that they lived in. 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:41.400 Duncan. 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:46.320 This is an active quarry, that's right. What's the fate 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:47.920 of these tracks? 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:53.640 Yeah, so it's still an active quarry. They're still extracting limestone. 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:58.640 It's worth saying that if they hadn't been a quarrying 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:00.840 this stone, we would have never found the Prince. Is 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:03.840 absolutely because of this quarrying activity that we're able to 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:08.360 do this work and they don't extract the stone that 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:10.720 the prints are in it's no good. It's too it's 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:15.879 too soft and material, and so they aren't being damaged 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.080 or destroyed in any way by the action of the 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:20.040 of the quarry. 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:23.600 Have you ever heard of the meat Eater Land Access 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:31.280 Initiative where we provide access to more outdoor activity on 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.720 on land here in the States. Primarily what are the 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:36.760 chances that we don't need one of the fancy three 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.879 toad ones, but one of the oval tracks getting shipped 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:43.600 over here so we can action it off for public access. 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:46.800 So there's a there's a few problems. One is if 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.880 you try and actually cut out the prince, they basically 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.719 fall apart. You can only really see them in the field. 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:59.280 So right now they're not accessible and they're getting recovered 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:02.360 with to actually protect them, that's the best thing to do. 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.919 But we're working very closely with the quarry and Natural England, 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.040 who are the body that oversee these kinds of things 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:14.920 here in the UK, for plans for potential future access. 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:17.880 What you can do though, is you can virtually visit 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:20.800 this site. So we've created a three D model of 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:25.480 the whole area and not every single individual print. We're 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:27.800 currently working up publishing that and we're going to make 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:30.840