Pickled Dinosaur Brains: A Fossilized Glimpse into Prehistoric Intelligence

In this episode of Wildly Curious, hosts Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole dive into a truly mind-boggling discovery—literally! Learn about the astonishing find of a fossilized dinosaur brain, uncovered in a tide pool in southern England. Preserved by bog-like conditions over 133 million years, this rare fossil reveals intricate details of a plant-eating dinosaur’s brain, including its cortex, capillaries, and even the folds and wrinkles. Katy and Laura explore how the unique chemistry of bogs led to this extraordinary preservation and what it tells us about dinosaur intelligence and evolution.

Perfect for paleontology fans, science enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the marvels of fossilization and prehistoric life!

Transcript

Laura: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Wildly Curious, a podcast that tells you everything you need to know about nature, probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura.

Katy: And I'm Katy, and this is the fourth episode. I didn't count. Fourth episode of Bog Banter. Where we just talk about stuff found in bogs. So this is our mini series break, mini episodes in between seasons of mid seasons.

Laura: Oh jeez. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katy: So, we'll be picking up the next season in January. Until then, we're just going to be talking about bogs and stuff.

Cool stuff

Laura: they're cool, and we find cool stuff in them, kinda like the caves. , it's ironic because the last one that I did was not actually found in a bog, but resulted from a bog. Same with this one. , so this one is Pickled Dinosaur Brains.

Katy: Ooh, cool.

Laura: Yeah, I was like, surely there's something in a bog other than a person.

 And so I, yeah. I found tiny source. , so [00:01:00] where was this found? It's a, it's

Like a palm sized fossil was found by a beachcomber because of course

Katy: Of course. Some people have all the luck.

Laura: All the luck. they wEre beachcombing a tide pool in southern England in 2004, and just happened to find this, uh, this chunk of rock. I don't even know how they knew what it was, but they were like, Oh, well, okay, here's this thing.

And, 

Katy: weird thing.

Laura: right? I mean, they must have known it was a fossil, or, or something.

Katy: Or just stood out and they just took it and was like, I don't know what this is, help.

Laura: and so some archaeologists, like, took a good look at it and found the following. It appears to be 133 million years old, and from either, like, basically one of two species, probably, or not species, but like genus, beryllium or hypsilospinous, both of which are iguanodon like.

So, like [00:02:00] Iguanodon, most people are familiar with, or if you've seen the movie Dinosaur, like the Disney movie Dinosaur, that's an Iguanodon. , so something like that, some plant eating dinosaur. And from looking at an, under a microscope, it seems that this dinosaur fell into a bog, which is really fortunate for us since bogs kind of preserve everything. 

Katy: for him. 

Laura: yes, unfortunately for him, and who knows why. Like, did he fall into a bog?

Was he already dead when he fell into the bog? Whatever. His body happened to flip over so that his head was resting at the very bottom. Also fortunate, because it needed that to happen. And then the acid and the salt in the bog literally pickled his brain, but not pickled as in like still soft tissue.

That would be cool, but no, this has been way too long for that. So if you remember in a past episode that I said, you know, first comes decomposition stops and then tanning and leathering and then eventually mineral demineralization of bones and mineralization [00:03:00] of other soft tissues. 

Katy: Yeah. 

Laura: if you also go back and listen to one of our fossil episodes, we talked about basically how fossils form, which is minerals take the place of other tissues.

Katy: Yeah. 

Laura: So, minerals took the place, um, and made an exact copy. of the brain inside. This is only a piece of that, so unfortunately we don't have the whole brain. We just have a small piece. But it is amazing what you can see. So looking under the microscope, you can see a you can see the meninges, which is the the membrane that surrounds the brain.

You can 

Katy: That's so detailed.

Laura: Oh my gosh, right? The membrane and then underneath appears to be like the cortex because they can see a crisscross of capillaries. And the wrinkles and folds of a brain. Right. So, um, I mean, pretty detailed and enough that they see that it does show some similarities with crocodiles and bird brains, as far as at least the small snippet that they [00:04:00] can see.

Um, there's also, I mean, either because of the way it fell and gravity made the brain settle and be against the skull. So could have been caused by gravity or could have been that their brain actually did take up their entire skull which is different Than crocodiles and birds because they have way more like it actually doesn't fill up their whole head There's a lot of other stuff in there like blood Um, so could be larger brain, but also could just be gravity, and they're not sure, and they won't know that.

Um, but they can give you some real insight into, you know, what did their cortex actually look like, what's their wrinkles and folds, like, and, and we know that usually, like, wrinkles and folds and intelli has to do a lot with 

Katy: It does. 

Laura: like that.

Katy: especially

for right the reptile. Would you stop

Laura: Freaking randomly discovered dinosaur brain fossil in a tide pool.

How did they know what it was that they found was significant? I don't know, but they did.

Katy: geez again it goes [00:05:00] some people have all the luck,

Laura: Keep your freaking eyes peeled, people. You never know. It could be dinosaur poop that you found. It won't even look like anything. Keep every rock you find. Oops. Laughs.

Katy: every rock you find That was a cool one. That was a really cool

Laura: Yeah, it's not very long, but like definitely like, Oh, cool. Guess what? We do know what a dinosaur brain looks like because of that,

Katy: because of a bog. Yeah, because of a bog. That's really cool. Alright guys, well, Make sure you go and, uh, support us on Patreon if you can. It helps us to keep bringing you content. Helps to pay for all this. Um, and then, like I said, next week, I'm also gonna talk about a non body bog find.

Um,

Laura: None body bog.

Katy: And then, uh, come January, then we will have our, uh, our new season then. Alright, bye.