Episode 217 - Bears

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Education, Earth Sciences, Natural Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2025

⏱️ 144 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bears are among the most charismatic and impressive mammals. They have large bodies, very flexible lifestyles, and an extensive fossil record that includes some of the best-preserved and largest fossil mammals of all time. This episode, we explore what makes bears so distinctive and successful, and how their diversity has changed over time. In the news: ancient alligators, rattlesnake venom, late land crocs, pterosaur tracks, and Caribbean crocodiles. Time markers:Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:05:45Main discussion, Part 1: 00:43:25Main discussion, Part 2: 01:28:25Patron question: 02:12:25 Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more: http://commondescentpodcast.com/ Listen to our new podcast, Leaf it to Us!https://linktr.ee/leafittouspod Join us on Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Got a topic you want to hear about? Submit your episode request here: https://commondescentpodcast.com/request-a-topic/ Lots more ways to connect with us: https://linktr.ee/common_descent The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.4	Hello, Will.
0:21.5	Hello, David.
0:25.5	Hello, listeners, and welcome back to the Common Descent podcast,
0:28.4	where we talk about paleontology, evolution, and all sorts of stuff.
0:32.7	This is episode 217, and our topic is bears.
0:33.7	Yeah.
0:40.0	This is a topic that has gotten a lot of enthusiasm from our audience and also from us.
0:43.1	This was a super fun episode to plan and then to record.
0:47.0	Bears are just, they're such satisfying animals.
0:49.5	It's exciting to get to talk about them.
0:50.6	They're fascinating.
0:55.7	They're really easy and exciting to talk about both modern and fossil. So in this episode, we will. We're going to go over bears, where they fall on the mammal family tree.
1:00.2	We'll go through their modern diversity. We'll go through their fossil record. We're going to
1:04.0	have a whole lot of fun. This episode was much requested. This is one of our upper most requested episodes.
1:11.7	As usual, all of our episodes are requested by our listeners.
1:16.0	You can submit your requests through the topic request form on our website.
1:20.6	The topic of bears was requested by Jonathan, Matthew, Brett, Dawn, Arturo, Lucas, Kelly, Hadley, Skogsmard, Nick, Ian, Amanda, Milu, C.J. Aaron, Lydia, Jesse, the European Pine Martin. Jesse, a different, Jesse. Alice, Jalen, Robert, Teo Ranasaurus, James, Aaron, Grizzly Adams, very fitting,
1:46.1	Johann, Anthony, Athena, far too critical, Justin, Ava, Aporva, Mr. Pockets, Erica,
1:53.9	Argentavis, Laura, Diana, McCarty, and a user very aptly named Bear.
2:01.3	Fantastic. McCarty and a user very aptly named Bear. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
2:04.6	Fantastic.
	...

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