How dinosaurs, fungi, and plants evolved together

Dinosaurs had a complex relationship with fungi and plants. We explore whether dinosaurs ate psychedelics, if they aided plant evolution, and even a carnivorous fungus.

For links to the main sources, all of the details we shared about Jeholornis, and our fun fact check out https://iknowdino.com/Jeholornis-Episode-528/

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Dinosaur of the day Jeholornis, the first known bird to eat fruit.

Some of the main topics in this episode:

• The psychotropic fungus ergot in the Cretaceous
• Fungi in dinosaurian (Isisaurus) coprolites
• Dinosaurs feeding on flowering plants
• Dinosaur—angiosperm coevolution revisited
• "Hunting the Snark: the flawed search for mythical Jurassic angiosperms"
• Angiosperm evolution using phylogenomics
• Possible pre-Cretaceous origin of flowering plants
• Ancient pollen that may be from angiosperms
• How the end-Cretaceous extinction led to modern rainforests
• How plants fared after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction

 

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