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Mass Extinctions, Dinosaurs, and Chasing Dreams with Juan-Pablo Piña @paleoauthor

Published on: 15th August, 2025

The Earth has ended before.

Five times in the last half-billion years, life on this planet has been nearly wiped clean—reset by asteroid impacts, volcanic winters, and cataclysms we can barely imagine. And now? We’re living through number six. The difference? This one’s caused by us.

But buried in those ancient endings are stories—lessons about resilience, adaptation, and the strange, beautiful creatures that made it through.

In this episode, I’m joined by JP, better known online as @paleoauthor, the mind behind the upcoming book Primordial: A Biology of Ancient Triumphs and Tragedies. Together, we explore:

  • Previous mass extinction events and what they can teach us about the one we’re in now
  • Why dinosaurs still capture our collective imagination
  • The weirdest prehistoric animals you’ve never heard of
  • The influence of media and film on our understanding of deep time
  • How telling the stories of the past might help us change the future

It’s part science, part storytelling, and part love letter to life itself.

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About the Podcast

The Wild Life
A show about the wonder and wildness of life, following the threads that connect us to the natural world.
An optimistic, curiosity-chasing show about the wonder and wildness of life, following the threads that connect us to the natural world. The Wild Life is, always has been, and always will be a show about the diversity of life within the animal kingdom, but it's about more than that. It's about connections. It's about how the natural world inspires our culture, movies, and technologies. It's about the patterns that persist throughout not just life, but the universe itself. It's about us.
The Wild Life is a place for the curious, the adventurous, the hopeful, and the hopeless to discover the natural world through unique perspectives. Between the blog and podcasts, The Wild Life seeks to bring the traditional naturalist experience into the 21st century by merging immersive storytelling and foley art with technology and creative experiences. It’s an exploration of truth, common ground, and shared places as we attempt to fill each episode with wonder, connectedness, intrigue, and humor.

Thank you for being here.

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