Podcast 246 - Fossil Record of Parental Care

Palaeo After Dark

The gang talks about two papers that look at evidence of parental care in the fossil record, in early synapsids and in insects. Meanwhile, Amanda is going to have an island, Curt is trying not to die, and James has some unique alternative interpretations to explain these fossils.

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

Our friends talk about two papers that look at moms and dads from a long long time ago. Not all animals have moms and dads that stick around or do anything to keep the babies from not getting dead. The first paper looks at a group of animals that looks like some animals today and is part of a group that is close to the group that has hair. This paper looks at some hard parts from these animals that were in a thing made by pulling up the ground so you can live there under the ground. There is a big one and a small one. The big one looks like it was holding the small one when the place under the ground fell in and covered them. The other thing about this paper is that the small one looks like a lot of other animals we have found from this group, which could mean that most of our animals we have named from this group could be kids.

The second paper looks at a type of small animal with hard parts on the outside and many legs that lives in water and can go deep in the water but takes in air to live. This animal is old but looks a lot like the ones we still have around today. Some of these animals have a leg that looks different from the others, and this leg has a whole lot of small balls that hold babies in them on it. So some of these animals carry the babies with them until they are ready to leave the small balls. This is different from how the animals like these ones that we have today handle their babies.

References:

Fu, Yanzhe, et al. "The earliest known brood care in insects." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 289.1978 (2022): 20220447.

Maddin, Hillary C., Arjan Mann, and Brian Hebert. "Varanopid from the Carboniferous of Nova Scotia reveals evidence of parental care in amniotes." Nature Ecology & Evolution 4.1 (2020): 50-56.