The Tiniest Dinosaur
Curious Cases
BBC
4.8 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2018
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"What is the tiniest dinosaur?" asks younger listener Ellie Cook, aged 11.
Today's hunt takes us from the discovery of dinosaurs right up to the present day, which is being hailed as a 'golden age' for palaeontology. One new species of dinosaur is currently being unearthed on average every single week.
But what's the smallest dino? And what can size reveal about the life of extinct animals?
Hannah goes underground at the Natural History Museum to look through their vaults in search of the tiniest dinosaur with palaeontologist Susie Maidment.
Meanwhile Adam chats to dinosaur expert Steve Brusatte from Edinburgh University about why size really does matter, especially when it comes to fossils.
Presenters: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford Producer: Michelle Martin.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Dr Adam Rutherford. And I'm Dr Hannah Fry. And you are going to send us your everyday |
| 0:10.8 | mysteries. And we are going to investigate them using the power of science. Science. I like it. |
| 0:21.0 | It's another episode of the curious cases of Rutherford and Fry. And one day I'm going to do that |
| 0:26.3 | in a way that doesn't make me cringe when I listen back to it. That makes me laugh every time |
| 0:30.1 | today. We have got a question that's come in from a younger Curio. She's called Ellie Cook. |
| 0:35.2 | And she also said, I love this podcast because the topics are not based on boring things. |
| 0:41.6 | They're based on fun things like vegetables, red hair, the cake, bushwine and all the others. |
| 0:46.1 | That's brilliant, Ellie. You're very close to being Curio of the week. And we haven't even got |
| 0:50.0 | into the show yet. And that is because today's episode and her question is all about dinosaurs, |
| 0:56.1 | which is just the best. Indeed. And for all you dino lovers, we actually have two further dinosaur |
| 1:03.4 | related questions that we have stuck into the pod at the end. So stay tuned for that. |
| 1:14.2 | Sometimes we deal with the grand and the epic. But today's question is small and perfectly formed. |
| 1:19.8 | Ellie Cook aged 11 asks, what is the tiniest dinosaur? |
| 1:24.3 | Okay. So at first glance, this may seem like a bit of a sort of top Trump's question, |
| 1:28.5 | but it turns out that size is one of the very first things that paleontologists try to work out |
| 1:33.5 | when they find a new fossil. And we are currently living in a golden age of dinosaur discovery. |
| 1:38.9 | On average, one new species of dinosaur is discovered every week. That is right. And another thing |
| 1:44.8 | that many people don't realize is just how incredibly successful dinosaurs were in an evolutionary |
| 1:50.0 | sense is something that really gets under the skin of paleontologists, Steve Brusati. |
| 1:54.8 | It pains me every time, you know, I see on the news some politician being referred to as a dinosaur, |
| 2:01.1 | some washed up celebrity being referred to as a dinosaur because dinosaurs were a success story. |
| 2:07.0 | They rule the earth for more than 150 million years. And they evolved into all sorts of different |
... |
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