Episode 236 - Chalicotheres

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

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

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2026

⏱️ 122 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Cenozoic Era was home to many unusual ancient mammals, but few so strange as the “gorilla-horses,” the ungulates that swapped their hooves for claws, chalicotheres. This episode, we discuss the features that make these animals distinct and which confused paleontologists for decades, and we go over what is known – and still unknown – about their evolution and lifestyles. In the news: Let’s Botanize, Prototaxites identity, and giant kangaroos. Find Let’s Botanize here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/ben-goulet-scott/lets-botanize/9781635869040/Book preorder promo: https://www.letsbotanize.org/preorder-promo. Time markers:Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:07:30Main discussion, Part 1: 00:50:20Main discussion, Part 2: 01:28:50 Patron question: 01:53:20 Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more: http://commondescentpodcast.com/ 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.
0:19.0	Hello, David. Hello, Will.
0:21.8	And hello listeners.
0:23.3	Welcome to episode 236 of the Commodicent podcast.
0:27.9	This episode, we are discussing Calicotheaers.
0:31.0	I'm so excited.
0:32.4	Yeah.
0:33.3	This is a particularly odd group of fossil mammals that sometimes gets overlooked, I think partially
0:42.1	because they're very strange and very mysterious.
0:45.6	Yeah, certainly among the most famous, not famous fossil groups.
0:51.5	Absolutely.
0:52.4	These are the odd clawed heresedactyls, hooved mammals with claws that were kind of shaped like horse gorillas.
1:02.0	Yep. We will be discussing this topic, as always, because it was requested by a fair number of people lending to the most popular, least known group.
1:17.0	Just so many people saying, please explain this.
1:20.5	Yes.
1:21.0	What is going on with these animals?
1:22.3	This was requested by Jenna, Bill, Brett, Johan, Bia, Oswaldo, Patty, Aaron, Danielle, Jarrett, Desi, Noah, Robert, Rowan, and Graham.
1:36.3	Also me, I also want you to explain what's going on with these animals.
1:41.3	Happily. We'll be discussing what these creatures are, how the mystery that surrounded them and
1:48.5	surrounds them still slowly was discovered and unfolded throughout history, and what are
1:56.0	some of the ideas for how these strange animals might have lived. But before we get into that discussion, some
2:03.5	quick announcements and then our news section, first announcement, as always, is that we have a
	...

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