A single specimen of a saleniid echinoid recently collected from the Late Maastrichtian of the type area of the Maastrichtian Stage is notable in being closely related to Salenia nutrix Peron and Gauthier, 1881. Representatives of the “nutrix group” have previously been recorded from the Late Cretaceous of the Mediterranean and north Africa. The occurrence in the type Maastrichtian of a representative of this group thus furnishes additional evidence of Tethyan incursions in the area during the Late Maastrichtian.

Unique among the Rugosa are specialized cyst-like structures in corals from an upper Carboniferous limestone within the Baird Formation in the Klamath Mountains, northern California. These structures, here referred to as septal cysts, occur mostly along the distal margins of the dark line extending along the axes of the major septa as seen in transverse section. However, they also commonly extend beyond the distal extent of those lines and may interrupt the fibrous coating in the more proximal parts of some septa. Their function is uncertain. Also present are small dissepiments which form a ring around the distal margins of the minor septa. These structures, however, do not appear to be related to the development of those septa. Some other taxa, including corals from the Bashkirian of Spain and the Kasimovian of Kansas, possess some specialized structures similar to those in the California specimens suggesting at least a remote relationship.

Macro- and microfossils are commonly preserved as external molds as a result of decay or dissolution of soft and mineralized body parts after compaction and cementation of the surrounding matrix. The molds, which often preserve external features of the organism in great detail, are difficult to compare to other specimens. To enhance study, positive casts are typically made. Numerous compounds can serve as a casting medium (Rigby and Clark, 1965; Rixon, 1976). In microfossil studies latex rubber (Klapper in Winder, 1966; Ellison, 1987; Tull et al., 1988) and silicone rubber (G. Miller, personal commun.) are the most commonly used materials. An alternative technique is to photograph the mold directly using a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

The early astogeny of specimens representing the bryozoan genera Dekayia, Parvohallopora, Heterotrypa, and Homotrypella follows the same pattern documented in other Ordovician trepostomes. After larval settlement and metamorphosis, typically three primary, periancestrular, autozooids bud distally from the founder zooid, the ancestrula, with secondary zooids budding from the primaries, tertiary zooids from the secondaries, and so on. Progressive lateral displacement of buds, through backbudding, eventually produces a subcircular ancestrular disk. Significant intergeneric differences in this basic pattern do not appear to exist. Intrageneric variability in budding pattern occurs during colony development. That variability might have resulted from any or all of the following sources: within-genus plasticity, the development of multiple ancestrulae, or environmental variation. The basic pattern of three primary buds developed from individual ancestrulae has been recognized in other trepostomes, some cyclostomes, and two suborders of cryptostomes. Cladistically, the trait must be considered polyphyletic until more is known about the number of primary buds in the remaining bryozoan suborders. Ancestrular dimensions are statistically similar across genera except between the smaller Dekayia and larger Parvohallopora, but ancestrular sizes in all four Dillsboro genera are consistent with the inference that they possessed a polyembryonic lecithotrophic larval type.

The use of different methodological approaches together with an exhaustive qualitative study has helped to recognize important morphological traits to distinguish species in a systematic and phylogenetic framework. Parabolinella triarthroides Harrington, 1938 was described based on two cranidia from the Quebrada de Coquena, Purmamarca, Jujuy province. The generic assignment of P. triarthroides has been questioned by a phylogenetic analysis, which resolves this species as the sister group of Bienvillia Clark, 1924. To explore the generic assignment of this species, a revision of the type material, plus a morphometric analysis including specimens of Parabolinella Brøgger, 1882 and Bienvillia were performed. In addition, the original matrix used in the published phylogeny was reviewed and enlarged, including more species of Bienvillia. Continuous characters were coded in different ways in order to compare how they could affect the ordering of specimens and their phylogenetic relationships. Finally, both methodologies were compared, especially in regard to the behavior of the quantitative characters included in the analyses. From the combined analyses, it is shown that similarities between the cranidium of P. triarthroides and all other Parabolinella species are true homologies instead of a by-product of evolutionary convergence. Therefore, P. triarthroides should be considered a member of this genus. Finally, this study demonstrates that the best strategy for solving systematic problems in groups where the morphological variation is the only source of information (i.e., fossil taxa without living representatives) is the implementation of an integrative approach, combining different methodological techniques and a good description of specimens.

Large palaeotrochid gastropods of the genera Floyda Webster (1905a) and Turbonopsis Grabau and Shimer (1909) occur in the late Frasnian Lime Creek Formation of Iowa. Floyda concentrica was designated as the type species of Floyda by earlier workers (Webster, 1905a; Knight, 1941), but is a junior synonym of F. gigantea (Hall and Whitfield, 1873). Three of five species and subspecies of Floyda described from the Lime Creek (Floyda concentrica, F. concentrica multisinuata, and F. gigantea depressa) are considered synonyms of the type species F. gigantea; the fifth species, F. gigantea hackberryensis, is here reassigned to the closely related genus Turbonopsis. Both F. gigantea and T. hackberryensis are redescribed using the original types and additional hypotype material from the collections of Charles Belanski.

Floyda, first known from late Givetian rocks of the Rhenish Slate Mountains in Germany, is widespread in the United States Midcontinent and western North America by early Late Devonian time. Turbonopsis was endemic to the Appohimchi Subregion of the Eastern Americas Realm prior to the Taghanic Onlap, and appears to have remained so until late Frasnian time when it migrated to western North America.

Eustatic sea-level highstands during the Middle and Late Devonian are thought to have breached barriers to migration, allowing both Floyda and Turbonopsis to disperse by prevailing oceanic currents from the United States Midcontinent into western North America during the late Frasnian. The expected oceanic current patterns of the Middle and Late Devonian paleogeographic reconstructions of Heckel and Witzke (1979, figs. 3, 5) adequately account for the known distribution and dispersal of Devonian palaeotrochid gastropods.

The Palaeotrochidae underwent extinction prior to the latest Frasnian. Floyda, Turbonopsis, and Westerna became extinct during the onset of the last eustatic deepening event prior to the close of the Frasnian. The extinction of the palaeotrochid gastropods as well as other invertebrate groups may have been the result of restriction or near elimination of shallow warm-water, well-oxygenated shelf habitats by the onlap of cold anoxic bottom waters prior to latest Frasnian time.

A tooth battery, palatoquadrate, and a gill-arch element of Bobbodus schaefferi were collected from Late Pennsylvanian/Early Permian (Asselian) rocks near Manhattan, Kansas. Depending on the placement of the Pennsylvanian–Permian boundary, this specimen extends the upper limit of the species from the Virgilian (Gzelian) into the Gearyan (Asselian). The new range thus is Kasimovian to Asselian, a 15 my interval. Based on features of the palatoquadrate, the diagnoses of the order Eugeneodontida and the superfamily Caseodontoidea are revised. Bobbodus is the most primitive genus of the order Eugeneodontida.

Small fusulinids are common in the Atokan and most Desmoinesian marine units in Ohio but less common in Missourian and Virgilian units. Twenty-one taxa are recognized. Five new species are proposed, including Millerella? elegantula, Eostaffella? recondita, Eostaffella inusitata, Pseudostaffella douglassi, and Pseudoendothyra ohioensis. Several specimens of uncertain taxonomic assignment are also included.

Approximately one-third of the previously recognized taxa were originally described from Europe and about one-half from western North America. Millerella? carbonica Grozdilova and Lebedeva, Eostaffella rjasanensis Rauzer-Chernousova, E. mutabilis Rauzer-Chernousova, and E. acuta Grozdilova and Lebedeva are reported from North America for the first time. The known ranges of several species have been extended significantly. These conclusions support the concept of a greater cosmopolitanism of Pennsylvanian foraminifers than has been generally recognized.

A low diversity fauna of microscopic crinoids from the Kinderhookian (Mississippian) McCraney Limestone at Seehorn Hollow, western Illinois, is described and illustrated by stereomicrographs. The crinoids include first record of the camerate crinoid genus Hexacrinites (H. mississippiensis n. sp.) above the Devonian. The other three taxa are all inadunates and include the monocyclic microcrinoid Allagecrinus mccraneyensis n. sp., which has up to 14 arms, and two dicyclic poteriocrinoids, Hypselocrinus maccabei (Miller and Gurley, 1894) and an indeterminate genus of the Scytalocrinidae.

Cambroclayes are Cambrian phosphatized problematica. The group is known from spine-like remains that are locally abundant on a number of Cambrian paleocontinents. Cambroclaves are known through a relatively short time interval (late Early Cambrian-early Middle Cambrian) mostly from tropical, carbonate platform successions on the Siberian Platform, East Gondwana (Australia, China, Kazakhstan), and West Gondwana. The West Gondwana occurrences include Cambroclavus ludwigsdorfensis Elicki, 1994 and Cambroclavus sp. from the late Early Cambrian of eastern Germany (Elicki, 1994, 2005; Elicki and Watte, 2003), and Cambroclavus sp. from the early Middle Cambrian of Sardinia (Elicki and Wotte, 2003;“ Elicki et al., 2003; Elicki, 2005, 2006). Recently, Clausen and Alvaro (2006) reported the zhijinitid form Parazhijinites cf. guizhouensis Qian and Yin, 1984 from the early Middle Cambrian of the Cantabrian zone of northwest Spain. Other than the mentioned tropical occurrences, Landing (1991) published the obviously cool to cold water form Samsanoffoclavus matthewi Landing, 1991 from the middle Early Cambrian of Cape Breton Island (Avalonia).

Crinoids flourished during the Early Mississippian, with late Osagean crinoids being among the most diverse and well studied. Among others, late Osagean crinoid faunas include the well-known Crawfordsville and Indian Creek localities in Montgomery County, Indiana (Van Sant and Lane, 1964; Lane, 1973), and the Keokuk Limestone in the Mississippi River valley stratotype region. the late Osagean faunas in North America have been comprehensively revised recently in a series of studies (Ausich and Kammer, 1990, 1991a, 1991b, 1992; Ausich and Meyer, 1992; Kammer and Ausich, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996; Ausich et al., 1997, 2000; Meyer and Ausich, 1997).

Two recently collected specimens of Bogotacrinus scheibei Schmidt, 1937, from the Devonian (Emsian–Eifelian) Floresta Formation of Colombia reveal that Bogotacrinus is a dicyclic camerate crinoid genus closely related to Pterinocrinus Goldring, 1923 (Lower–Upper Devonian of eastern North America and western Europe), and Ampurocrinus McIntosh, 1981 (Lower Devonian of Bolivia). The new diplobathrid camerate crinoid family Pterinocrinidae, characterized by species with low conical dicyclic cups and rami composed of compound, bipinnulate brachials, is herein proposed to accommodate these three genera. This family originated in western Europe and migrated into the Malvinokaffric and southern Eastern Americas Realms during the Early Devonian and into the northeastern Appalachian Basin by the Late Devonian.

Fossil insects from the Triassic-Jurassic boundary of England could provide an important resource for investigating the severity of extinction events in the terrestrial realm of the uppermost Triassic. However, the fossil record is poorly understood for this period even though there are abundant historical collections. Many of these collections are still in need of taxonomic revision before they can be used to reconstruct past entomofaunas and make inferences about diversity change through time. This paper is part of a larger project to revise the taxonomy of insects across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary of England to better understand changes in insect diversity through the Triassic-Jurassic boundary and associated extinction period. Herein, the damsel-dragonfly family Liassophlebiidae Tillyard, 1925 is revised and an additional specimen from the Early Jurassic of Antarctica is included. Rossiphlebia new genus is erected for Liassophlebia jacksoni Zeuner, 1962; L. batheri Tillyard, 1925 is considered nomen dubium and another specimen originally attributed to L. batheri is identified as L. withersi Tillyard, 1925. Liassophlebia (?) clavigaster Tillyard, 1925 and L. (?) hopei (Brodie, 1845) are considered incertae sedis at the generic level. Liassophlebia gigantea Zeuner, 1962 is based on a fragmentary specimen but has several unique key characteristics. We redescribe it in Anglophlebia new genus and tentatively in Anglophlebiidae new family in Heterophlebioptera. Also discussed are L. magnifica Tillyard, 1925, L. withersi, and L. pseudomagnifica Whalley, 1985, which are redescribed with updated figures. Caraphlebia antarctica Carpenter, 1969 was originally described from the Early Jurassic of Antarctica as being closely related to Liassophlebia; it is herein confirmed in Selenothemistidae Handlirsch, 1939.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/8fe9a39c-1c3b-4bda-92a6-92c1a0fc95b8

Family-level taxonomic concepts for Paleozoic Asteroidea are problematic; data availability for the family Urasterellidae, however, is judged sufficient for familial reappraisal. The survey cannot be fully comprehensive because certain available names are founded on very limited material, with specimens widely scattered among collections. Recognized urasterellid genera include Urasterella Schuchert, 1914; Anthroosasterias Blake, 2017; Meturaster Blake, Guensburg, and Lefebvre, 2016; Salteraster Stürtz, 1893; Staurasterias Blake, 2017; Ulrichaster Spencer, 1950; and Pegoasterella pompom n. gen. n. sp. Other available generic names are held in abeyance. The name Urasterella has approached form-genus status, an outcome exacerbated by incomplete understanding of the type species. Urasterella huxleyi (Billings, 1865) is reassigned to Anthroosasterias. Relatively large specimen suites for Anthroosasterias huxleyi (Billings, 1865) and Salteraster grandis (Meek, 1872) enable some interpretation of urasterellid intrataxon variation, ontogenetic change, and life mode. Morphologic changes accompanying ontogeny of A. huxleyi are argued as favoring a shift from substrate surface feeding to feeding through extension of arms into the water column in a manner comparable to that seen among extant Forcipulatida and ophiurans.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/82d2eca7-55e0-42ed-a164-c666652e3972

Two rare, phosphatized, tubular microfossils of uncertain affinity, probably algal, are described from the Portfjeld biota (Ediacaran) of North Greenland. Portfjeldia aestatis n. gen. n. sp. preserves two tubules, one of which branches, within an annulated outer sheath. Its morphology can be compared to that of the much larger Ramitubus from the Weng'an biota of South China. An unnamed long, parallel-sided tubule occupied the postmortal cavity formed within diagenetically mineralized specimens of the cyanobacterium Jiangispirellus.

As many as eight species of the “anchitherine” equid Miohippus have been identified from the John Day Formation of Oregon, but no statistical analysis of variation in these horses has yet been conducted to determine if that level of diversity is warranted. Variation of the anterior-posterior length and transverse width of upper and lower teeth of Turtle Cove Member Miohippus was compared to that of M. equinanus, Mesohippus bairdii, Equus quagga, and Tapirus terrestris using t tests of their coefficients of variation (V). None of the t tests are significant, indicating that the variation seen in Turtle Cove Miohippus is not significantly different from any of the populations of other perissodactyls examined in this study. Data also indicate that Mesohippus is present in the Turtle Cove Member. Additionally, hypostyle condition, used to diagnose all species of Miohippus, was found to be related to stage of wear using an ordered logistic regression. Only two species of equid, one Miohippus and one Mesohippus, in the Turtle Cove Member can be identified, therefore only Miohippus annectens, the genotype and first species described from the region, can be recognized as the sole Miohippus species known from the Turtle Cove assemblage. There are insufficient data to determine which species of Mesohippus is present. The dependence of hypostyle condition on crown height in Miohippus implies that wear stage must also be considered in investigations of dental morphology in the “Anchitheriinae.”

The recently discovered mass mortality of fishes from the Tanis Site in the North Dakota portion of the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation contains many well-preserved, three-dimensional skeletons. Among these are representatives of two acipenseriform families, Acipenseridae (sturgeons) and Polyodontidae (paddlefishes). This paper describes two new monotypic polyodontid genera, expanding our knowledge of polyodontid diversity. The first of the new species described here is †Parapsephurus willybemisi n. gen. n. sp. It is distinguished from all other known species by having a combination of posteriorly elongate parietals, the middle fenestra longitudinalis bordered medially by the parietal and frontal and laterally by the dermopterotic, slender and numerous dorsal caudal fulcra, an elongate hyomandibula that is not hourglass shaped, and gill rakers that are short and widely spaced. The second polyodontid species described here is †Pugiopsephurus inundatus n. gen. n. sp. It is diagnosed by a combination of having stellate bones that are exceptionally poorly developed or absent and having a dermopalatine with a medial expansion and lacking an ectopterygoid process. The two species of paddlefishes described in this paper add to the morphological and taxonomic diversity of Polyodontidae. The presence of these taxa within the Hell Creek Formation hints at substantial diversity of polyodontids at this stage of their evolutionary history.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/08cbf8c5-59ba-41fa-9265-8cb762cf7b13

Toyotamaphimeia is an extinct crocodylian lineage whose name is derived from a mythological Japanese princess. Here, we re-examine the type specimens of a long-forgotten species: Tomistoma taiwanicus from the Pleistocene of Tainan (Taiwan) and revise its taxonomic status to Toyotamaphimeia taiwanicus n. comb., leading to the first recognized species of Toyotamaphimeia outside Japan. Our phylogenetic analyses also support this taxonomic assignment and, more interestingly, further suggest an East Asian lineage. In addition, Toyotamaphimeia taiwanicus n. comb. represents a tropical species, resolving a long-standing puzzle of why Toyotamaphimeia only inhabited a much higher latitudinal area (Japan). Given the large body size of Toyotamaphimeia taiwanicus n. comb. (~7 m) and the fact that it is geologically older than Toyotamaphimeia machikanensis from Japan, we propose a novel evolutionary scenario: the genus Toyotamaphimeia originated in Taiwan and evolved to a large body size with gigantothermic physiology, which resulted in migration out of Taiwan and dispersal farther north to Japan. Our taxonomic identification shows the presence of an extinct endemic crocodylian species from the Pleistocene of Taiwan with large-scale paleogeographic implications. This study, with our recent progress in vertebrate paleontology in Taiwan, should provoke more in-depth paleontological research on the Pleistocene extinction.