Science at UM [S01-ep05]: From giant sloths to the sclerotron platform

[Podcast] - Published on November 25, 2021 in Research Centers, Science-Society, Research Structures

This week, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, paleontologist atISEM, tells us about the discovery of the first giant sloth fossil in French Guiana. In the second part of the program, Maylis Labonne and Franck Ferraton from the Marbec laboratory take us a tour of the sclerotology platform.  

And now we head to French Guiana, where a strange creature awaits you. With a Spanish broom-like appearance, huge arms ending in three Freddy Krueger-like claws, round eyes like marbles, and legendary slowness. You've recognized it, of course—it's the sloth, but would you be able to recognize its ancestor?

At the end of 2020, illegal gold miners unearthed something far more precious than gold: the skeletonof Eremotherium laurillardi, or giant sloth, a species that could grow up to 4 meters tall and disappeared from the face of the earth 12,000 years ago. From October 12 to 18, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, a paleontologist atISEM, traveled with his team to the site of what he describes as a "great discovery" to unearth the maxilla, mandible, radius, and other fossilized elements and identify them. He tells us all about this expedition, which is worthy of an episode of Indiana Jones.

In the second part of the program, we take you to the Triolet campus for a tour of the sclerotron laboratory with Maylis Labonne and Franck Ferraton, who manage to make fish otoliths and shark vertebrae "talk" in order to determine their age and even trace the paths they have traveled. Today, they reveal to us their work, which is truly detective work...

At UM Science, you have the program, so let's get started!

Co-production: Divergence FM / University of Montpellier
Host: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interview: Aline Périault / Lucie Lecherbonnier
Reporting: Aline Périault
Production: Anna Demeulandre

Listen to the program “A l’UM la science” on Divergence FM 93.9

Keywords: Science at UM, Research, Science