Best Iszi Podcasts (2025)

1
Nanotyrannus or not? 57:55

Play Pause

26d ago57:55

57:55

The biggest news in palaeontology this year dropped just in time for us to miss it with last month's episode but we're giving it the full hour this time. The idea that there's a miniature tyrannosaur running around in the Late Cretaceous alongside Tyrannosaurus has long been a contentious one, with most palaeontologists favouring the interpretation…

1
S01E09 Bonus Livestream 43:32

1M ago43:32

43:32

This is a mildly edited recording of the livestream we broadcast on youtube on 11.11.25. Thank you for all those who made it. You can watch the broadcast from our patreon page where you can also download loads of extra content. Please go to https://www.patreon.com/TalkLikeAnEgyptian If you are looking for iszi's books find them here (or on your fav…

51
S01E08 Questions Episode 44:03

1M ago44:03

44:03

Big thank you to Bill, Temika, Tini, Amy and Danny. All your support means the world to us! We hope to be back for another series as soon as possible, please subscribe and follow us on Patreon to make sure you do not miss an announcement. https://www.patreon.com/TalkLikeAnEgyptian Meanwhile do please check out our books. For those interested in Med…

1
S11E10 Spinosaur Tales oo woo oo 59:00

1M ago59:00

59:00

Dave has *another* book coming out and so of course he wants to talk about it a bit on the pod. Happily for the listeners, this time out he has a coauthor and so we get to have palaeontologist and palaeoartist Mark Witton on as well so that Iszi has some support for once. The new book is on that most controversial of dinosaurs, Spinosaurus and its …

1
S01E07 King Tut ON FIRE 47:44

1M ago47:44

47:44

Tutankhamun is now very famous of course but ironically he was relatively insignificant right? We know that Tutankhamun was the 'boy king' and ruled as a child and so didn't - couldn't have - done much… In this episode we challenge this view, and show that in fact Tutankhamun ruled at the most interesting of times and may have been responsible for …

51
S01E06 King Tut Part One 44:11

2M ago44:11

44:11

The greatest archaeological discovery of all time. Even now, it's difficult to comprehend the full extent of what Howard Carter found in Valley of Kings tomb no. 62: the intact tomb of a pharaoh who turned out to have been a little boy when he came to throne, and possibly still in his teens when he died, containing more than 5,000 objects, almost a…

51
S01E05 Egyptomania 45:13

2M ago45:13

45:13

Why are we so obsessed with Ancient Egypt? All children study it, museum galleries displaying Egyptian objects are always full, documentaries always do really well, and we've had a couple of waves of Egyptomania – in the 1800s and following the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. We talked a lot in this episode about the historical background to …

1
S01E04 The Pyramids 48:10

2M ago48:10

48:10

The pyramids, particularly those at Giza, are pretty famous right? In this episode we ask: What were they? Where were they? When were they? Were the all the same? (No). How did they differ, how did they develop? What was inside? Are you sure they're tombs? Not power stations or spacecraft? When weren't they? Why did the Egyptians stop building them…

1
S01E03 The Nile 43:05

2M ago43:05

43:05

The Nile In this episode we're trying to explain how fundamentally important the river Nile was to the presence of human beings in what we now call Egypt, and how this allowed civilisation to flourish there at such an early moment in human history, and to endure for such a long time. We talked about people settling along the banks of the Nile where…

1
TLS11E09 Ancient Sea Reptiles 1:01:59

2M ago1:01:59

1:01:59

Long time listener and second time guest Darren Naish joins us to talk about marine reptiles. While Darren is best known for his work on dinosaurs and pterosaurs, he has fingers in a huge number of vertebrate pies, and he has a new edition out of his book on all of the Mesozoic monsters that lived in the sea. So, strap in for an incredibly being to…

1
S01E02 The Ancient Egyptian Afterlife 42:53

3M ago42:53

42:53

The ancient Egyptians' beliefs in the afterlife were many and varying, weren't the same for pharaohs and commoners, and changed over time but in this episode we did our best to cover the main bases including: the journey made the sun / the king through the netherworld (the 'amduat'), the main groups of texts including the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Text…

1
S01E01 What's Right with The Mummy (1999) 47:28

2M ago47:28

47:28

So, it's easy – if you an Egyptology pedant – to pick holes The Mummy, which the two of us have done several times at the British Museum. But actually, being more generous about it, a lot of what's in the film is clearly inspired by good evidence and in this episode we tried to cover what seemed to us to be the most important themes: including the …

1
A New Egyptology Podcast Audio Trailer 0:58

3M ago0:58

0:58

LAUNCHING SEPT 2025! Talk Like An Egyptian with Dr Chris Naunton and Iszi Lawrence. To support the podcast join us on Patreon.com/talklikeanegyptian and unlock bonus content. Get in touch [email protected] or use #TLAE. We need your questions for the end of the series so please don't hold back. Remember to leave us five stars (of Nut)…

1
A New Egyptology Podcast 0:58

3M ago0:58

0:58

LAUNCHING SEPT 2025! Talk Like An Egyptian with Dr Chris Naunton and Iszi Lawrence. To support the podcast join us on Patreon.com/talklikeanegyptian and unlock bonus content. Get in touch [email protected] or use #TLAE. We need your questions for the end of the series so please don't hold back. Remember to leave us five stars (of Nut)…

1
TLS11E08 Sauropodcast Spectacular! 57:53

3M ago57:53

57:53

Disaster with the recording this episode! Sorry if it is hard to hear in places we were forced to use the emergency back up! Disaster with the recording this episode! Sorry if it is hard to hear in places we were forced to use the emergency back up! Listeners may remember that Dave went to Utah a couple of years back to try and help with a sauropod…

1
TLS11E07 Flappy Flap Bum Flaps 54:06

5M ago54:06

54:06

Pterosaur soft tissues It's a double new paper episode this time as thanks to the magic of almost random review and publication times, Dave has two papers out on the same subject in the same month! So strap in for some absolute minutiae on pterosaur hands, feet, scales, and the oddly overlooked wing membrane that sits between their legs. Pterosaurs…

1
TLS11E06 LIVE AT FOSSIL FESTIVAL 1:07:50

6M ago1:07:50

1:07:50

June, rather incredibly, marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of series 1, episode 1 of the podcast. As a rather fortuitous bit of timing, we were invited to host a live Terrible Lizards event at Lyme Regis (home of Mary Anning) for their Fossil Festival. We could hardly say 'no', so here is a recording of that hour long session where we field…

1
TLS11E05 Curating Dinosaurs II Curate Harder 59:01

6M ago59:01

59:01

Curating Dinosaurs II Curate Harder! On this episode we welcome Jordan Mallon, a long-time collaborator of Dave's and, against the odds, a long-time listener of Terrible Lizards. While we talk about Jordan's research and career in this pod, and his work on dinosaur sizes and ecology, this one also serves as something of a sequel to our previous epi…

1
TLS11E04 Curating Dinosaurs 59:07

7M ago59:07

59:07

We have talked about all manner of fundamentals of research on fossils over the years here on Terrible Lizards, including finding and excavating fossils, writing and publishing papers, reconstructing animals from fragments and more. But we've somehow really glossed over the role of museums that store and protect fossils and make them available for …

1
TLS11E03 T. rex slugfest! 54:57

8M ago54:57

54:57

This time out we are joined by palaeontologist Andre Rowe to talk about his research into the skulls of giant carnivorous dinosaurs and what this means for their biology. This turns into a debate with Dave about how evidence can be interpreted in different ways and trying to piece together the often limited data we have to work out what these anima…

1
TLS11E02 Dinos and Dragons 1:06:31

9M ago1:06:31

1:06:31

This month's episode is a sort of follow-up to that from the start of the year, looking at some of the more problematic areas of dinosaurs and palaeontology when it comes to online discussions. There is an online fandom of dinosaurs that treats them like monsters or superheroes, and can fixate on what is and isn't the biggest / strongest / fastest …

1
TLS11E01 Say My Name 52:38

10M ago52:38

52:38

Series 11, eh? We don't think we, or anyone else reading this, expected that. Nor did we expect issues with Dave's microphone (apologies)… Still, here we are and with more dinosaur goodness coming. We say 'coming' because this episode is far less about dinosaurs and pterosaurs than usual, but more about the mechanisms of science. In this case it's …

1
TLS10E12 End of Year Megasode! 53:02

12M ago53:02

53:02

Thanks to Kyle, Tom, Ashley, Aurous, Wayne, Paleo Pete, Tyler, Will, Israel, Charles, James and Edward Support us on patreon.com/terriblelizards and be rewarded with extra content! We are planning on going live on isztube at 16:00 GMT on Friday 26th December. (Time may change)By Dr David Hone and Iszi Lawrence

1
TLS10E11 Skiphosoura - the pterosaur of the gaps 56:21

1y ago56:21

56:21

Skiphosoura – the pterosaur of the gaps So last week Dave had a new paper out and this time it's a new pterosaur, named Skiphosoura bavarica (the sword tail of Bavaria) and it is both really interesting and really important for pterosaur research. It tells us a lot about the key transition of pterosaurs from the early forms through to the derived p…

1
TLS10E10 Uncovering Dinosaur Behaviour 46:54

1y ago46:54

46:54

Dave has a new book out next week and it's the culmination of several years work. Longtime listeners will know the major themes already from the episode title – a lot of stuff in the literature on dinosaur behaviour is badly framed, overstated, contradictory or contains major over extrapolations. Happily, you can listen to all of this again as Dave…

1
TLS10E09 Mike Benton 58:04

1y ago58:04

58:04

Last month we mentioned that legendary palaeontologist Mike Benton had announced his retirement, but with a few quick emails, Dave was able to grab him for this month's episode. So, join Dave and Iszi as we have celebration of Mike's career and take him through his early interest in palaeontology, how he got his PhD, the death of Al Romer, rhynchos…

1
TlS10E08 Sauropods couldn't lick 1:00:57

1+ y ago1:00:57

1:00:57

We've made plenty of jokes over the years about the general lack of sauropod skulls and the frustrations of trying to work out what these animals were doing when it came to things like feeding when the most important bit is missing. Happily, this week we are joined by David Button who has done a ton of work in this area and is happy to chat to Dave…

1
TLS10E07 The Megalosauroids 49:03

1+ y ago49:03

49:03

The spinosaurs get all the love (OK, mostly hate) and attention when it comes to the megalosauroids, but they are but one weird branch of this group of theropods. Sadly they have a similar problem to the spinosaurs in that there are annoyingly few fossils of them, and there's very few people working on these animals. Happily, today Iszi and Dave ar…

1
TLS10E06 The Death of The Dinosaurs 54:48

1+ y ago54:48

54:48

We have touched on the extinction that killed the dinosaurs plenty of times before over the various seasons of TL, but we have never really tackled it fully before. Finally, we are joined by a real expert on this subject, Melanie During who is in the process of finishing her PhD on this very subject. So prepare for not actually really any dinosaurs…

1
TLS10E05 Live Dinosaur Questions 1:03:18

1+ y ago1:03:18

1:03:18

Live edited recording at The Oxford Fire Station on 25/05/2024. Live Anniversary Q&A for the Oxford Podcast Festival It's the 4th (!) anniversary of the launch of Terrible Lizards and this came at a perfect time as Iszi and Dave got invited to do the recent podcast festival in Oxford. So, while we have our usual end of series Q&QA episode in a few …

1
TLS10E04 Dinosaurs of the Antarctic 1:10:06

1+ y ago1:10:06

1:10:06

We all know about how common dinosaurs can be in places like Europe, Argentina, the US, China and Mongolia, but they have turned up in dozens and dozens of countries and on every continent, including Antarctica. Unsurprisingly, it's a very tough place to work, it costs a ton of money, and there are not that many dinosaurs to be found, but they are …

1
TLS10E03 Dinosaur footprints 1:00:26

1+ y ago1:00:26

1:00:26

Dinosaur footprints with Peter Falkingham Footprints and trackways are an amazing source of data on how dinosaurs moved and what they did. But interpreting these can be a real nightmare since it's hard to work out the interactions between a moving foot and the actual surface, or work out which species might have made which tracks. At the forefront …

1
TLs10E02 Coelophysis 55:50

2y ago55:50

55:50

We don't often delve into the Triassic since Dave is not well versed in that time and the animals that were around then, but there were some very important animals that we've unduly overlooked across the last 9 series. Happily, today we can redress a large part of that with this episode on Coelophysis. Known from hundreds of skeletons, it's one of …

1
TLS10E01 200 years of dinosaurs 48:18

2y ago48:18

48:18

The year 2024 is the 200th anniversary of the naming of the first dinosaur, Megalosaurus. While 'Dinosauria' wouldn't be coined till 1842 (so we have a fair wait before that anniversary kicks in, and doubtless will be marked with another major celebration) it is a great time to take stock of where we are in dinosaur palaeontology. So obviously a go…

1
TLS09E12 The Dinosaur who must not be named! 52:35

2y ago52:35

52:35

Stegosaurus with Dr Susie Maidment THE TIME HAS COME. For ages Dave, for very Dave reasons refused to cover one dinosaur. Now, we find out all about it with an expert in the field. Last year's mystery xmas present to all of you who support us now for everyone. Patrons will get an video bonus episode. You can follow Susie Maidment https://twitter.co…

1
TLS09E11 The Bite Stuff 48:18

2y ago48:18

48:18

Longtime listeners will be familiar with the fact that Dave has spent a lot of time looking at and working on various bites marks on dinosaur bones left by the carnivorous theropods. These can tell us an enormous amount about who was doing what to whom and what it can mean for the ecology and behaviour of both the herbivores that were bitten and th…

1
TLS09E10 Dino Docs! 51:59

2y ago51:59

51:59

Dinosaur documentaries are booming again so it's time to blow the lid on some insider secrets of how these get made. (Alternative description: Dave complains for an hour about being messed around by TV companies and ignored by the very producers and directors who hired him for his advice on the models and scrip they are working on). Dave and Iszi s…

1
TLS09E09 Odd ideas in palaeontology 55:13

2y ago55:13

55:13

Odd ideas in palaeontology Palaeontology as a scientific field is beyond popular in the media and with the public but that also means it draws a lot of attention from those with, let's call them, questionable ideas. And no group gets more of this stuff than the dinosaurs and the animals of the Mesozoic. This time out, Iszi and Dave discuss the worl…

1
TLS09E08 Mega Questions Episode 1:00:08

2+ y ago1:00:08

1:00:08

It is the mega questions episode! Due to Dave etch-a-sketching everything in his life, making things like access to the internet an unusual hurdle, we decided to do answer as many questions we could in an hour. We didn't manage to run out of questions. Big thanks to Trisha, Sophia, Matt, Roy, Harris, Marcus, Noah, Jay, Aurous Azhdarchid, Rachel, Ri…

1
TLS09E07 Elvis is extinct! 49:54

2+ y ago49:54

49:54

Petrodactyle and Pterosaur Growth Dave has had a productive year for pterosaur papers and now two are out in quick succession(!) so get ready for a double-whammy podcast of him rolling his eyes when Iszi mentions flappy-flaps and he's trying to be serious. Anyway, first up is a new large pterosaur from southern Germany with a massive bony crest on …

1
TLS09E06 Utah Rapture 58:08

2+ y ago58:08

58:08

This week a 'what I did on my holidays' from Dave, though it wasn't a holiday and he dug a hole in Utah and looked at a ton of museums and quarries. The Morrison Formation is a legendary slice of dinosaur history with a huge number of famous sites, important fossils, and features animals like Diplodocus, Allosaurus and Stegosaurus. After far too ma…

1
TLS09E05 A Sternum talking to 54:47

2+ y ago54:47

54:47

Pterosaurs flew! No big shock there, but obviously flight places major constraints and selective pressures on the skeleton. This should mean all pterosaurs have standard, not-that-varied flight anatomy (in the same way most walking animals have similar leg anatomy). It turns out an absolutely critical part of the pterosaur is both basically all but…

1
0106 Phone calls from the past 30:06

2+ y ago30:06

30:06

Iszi and Julia speak to Finn Kennedy of Applied Stories to discuss the process behind bringing imagined voices from across time to life as part of the Eternal Telephone audio drama project. Please share your comments and feedback about the podcast! You can talk to us on Twitter @britishmuseum using the hashtag #BMUntold or email friends@britishmuse…

1
0105 The Benioff Oceania Programme 29:54

2+ y ago29:54

29:54

Curator of Oceania Alice Christophe chats to Iszi and Julia about the collaborative work undertaken with Pacific communities to transform the understanding, care and curation of collections from Hawaiʻi and Rapa Nui currently physically at the museum. Please share your comments and feedback about the podcast! You can talk to us on Twitter @britishm…

1
0104 The International Training Programme 29:19

2+ y ago29:19

29:19

Iszi and Julia meet with programme manager Claire Messenger and alumni to explore the importance of international collaboration for museums and heritage sites, and the ways in which a global network of professionals can provide support, resources, and innovative perspectives for these institutions. Please share your comments and feedback about the …

1
0103 Lending a helping hand: The world of object loans 29:54

2+ y ago29:54

29:54

Have you ever wondered how objects are moved to and from the Museum? Hear from Loans registrar Chris Stewart as he shares the intricate process of borrowing and lending cherished objects. Please share your comments and feedback about the podcast! You can talk to us on Twitter @britishmuseum using the hashtag #BMUntold or email friends@britishmuseum…

1
0102 Inside the Iraq scheme and Girsu project 37:35

2+ y ago37:35

37:35

Iszi and Julia sit down with curator Sébastien Rey and archaeologist Rana Zuhair to find out more about the highly successful scheme designed to prepare Iraqi colleagues for the immense challenges facing the archaeological heritage of their country. Please share your comments and feedback about the podcast! You can talk to us on Twitter @britishmus…

1
TLs09E04 Don't Mamention the neck 49:12

2+ y ago49:12

49:12

Sauropods in general don't get the love they should on Terrible Lizards because, well, Dave doesn't know that much about them (and everyone knows theropods are best anyways). However, there's more than a couple that are both well-known enough in general and Dave know a bit about them that we can talk for a decent amount of time. Step forward the lo…

1
TLS09E03 Dinosaur Displays 52:57

2+ y ago52:57

52:57

This is an area we have definitely covered before but it's one of perennial interest and keeps coming round with new studies, how can we tell what ancient animals were doing with weird features. More specifically, how do claims that this feather, or sail, or frill, or claw were used as a display feature stack up? Can we really work out what dinosau…

1
TLS09E02 Dinosaurs News 56:37

3y ago56:37

56:37

Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals have been a hit in the media for about as long as palaeontologists have been digging them up. But even in the modern age of digital communication, there is almost always an intermediate (and often several) between a palaeontologist and their audience when it comes to communicating about these animals. Whether…