Morphologic analyses of a large quantity of teudopseid coleoids from the Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian) of Lebanon has yielded a much higher diversity than previously assumed and revealed numerous extraordinarily well-preserved soft-part characters. The Teudopseina is represented by three families (only the Muensterellidae are still unknown in the Lebanon Plattenkalks). The Teudopsidae is represented by one species (Teudopsinia haasi), the Trachyteuthididae by five species (Trachyteuthis bacchiai n. sp., Glyphiteuthis libanotica, Gl. abisaadiorum, Gl. freijii n. sp., and Glyphidopsis waagei n. gen. n. sp.), and the Palaeololiginidae by one species (Rachiteuthis donovani). Gl. freijii n. sp. represents the first record of a coleoid cephalopod from Nâmmoura. A detailed comparison with Jurassic gladii shows that the Teudopseina is a very homogenous group that can be easily differentiated from other Mesozoic, gladius-bearing groups (Prototeuthidina, Loligosepiina). Despite comparatively large gaps in the fossil record, each of the Late Cretaceous gladii can be readily associated with Jurassic precursors. Particularly, the first record of two pairs of fins in Glyphiteuthis exemplifies that in addition to gladius similarities, similarities in soft-parts exist as well. A previously undescribed specimen of Rachiteuthis exhibits unusually well-preserved gills. In general, the soft-part morphology of the Teudopseina clearly indicates octobrachiate affinities (i.e., absence of tentacles, circular suckers, cirri, two pairs of fins, octopod-like eye capsules); no existing evidence supports a decabrachiate relationship.

A new species of stem parrot is reported from the early Eocene Fossil Butte Member of the Green River Formation. Well-preserved specimens including a complete skeleton and referred partial postcranial skeleton reveal new osteological details of the clade Halcyornithidae and expand the known diversity of the Green River avifauna. Cyrilavis colburnorum n. sp. shares key morphologies with the smaller Green River halcyornithid Cyrilavis olsoni. A combined phylogenetic analysis of Pan-Psittaciformes using 101 morphological characters and sequence data from three genes (RAG-1, Z-chromosomal spindlin and cytochrome b) supports the placement of 1) Halcyornithidae, 2) a small clade uniting the Messel fossil taxon Psittacopes lepidus and an unnamed London Clay species, and 3) Quercypsittidae on branches successively closer to the crown clade Psittaciformes. Analysis of the morphological dataset alone yields a similar strict consensus tree with slightly less resolution (one additional branch collapsed). Relationships within the crown clade agree well with recent hypotheses in supporting a basal divergence between the New Zealand Nestoridae and all other extant parrots, and a second major divergence between Cacatuidae and Psittacidae. When fossils are taken into account, many previously proposed synapomorphies of extant parrots are instead optimized as synapomorphies of more inclusive groups including both stem fossil taxa and living taxa. Fossil evidence is consistent with a more recent origin of crown clade Psittaciformes than predicted from divergence dating analyses, and supports environmental shifts and dispersal as key drivers in parrot biogeography.

A single large colony (20 cm) of Rhombopora blakei n. sp. from the Hook Head Formation of Ireland (Tournaisian Stage, Mississippian) permits an analysis of within-colony variation associated with environmental change at a calendar scale (days to decades). Morphometric data for three external characters—apertures spacing along a branch and diagonal to a branch as well as lateral zooecial spacing—were collected as growth series (16–30 generations) from 13 segments within the colony. ANOVA, post-hoc means testing and graphical analysis of standardized data revealed nearest neighbor effects at the zooecial level and non-random distribution of variances across the colony. Parametric tests for sequential nonrandomness revealed cyclic variation through growth transects at three levels (23.3, 9.4 and 5.3 generations). Comparisons to growth rates of modern bryozoans suggests that the longer-term cycles are annual and that the shortest cycles may be related to lunar tidal cycles. The exceptional size and preservation of this single specimen, which is a new species of rhabdomesine Bryozoa, reinforces the importance of collecting individual morphological measurements from randomly selected and widely spaced parts of a colony for taxonomic, evolutionary and ecological applications.

Two new specimens of a trigonotarbid arachnid are described from Upper Pennsylvanian (Virgilian) rocks of Kansas, U.S.A., from a horizon which elsewhere has yielded scorpion and mite remains. They are the first representatives of the arachnid order Trigonotarbida to be found in Kansas. The specimens are referred to the genus Anthracomartus but are not identified to species pending revision of the American anthracomartids.

A costal and a peripheral bone from the Early Cretaceous (Valanginian, ca. 135 Ma) Rosablanca Formation, Zapatoca town, Colombia are described. These specimens represent the earliest record of podocnemidoid turtles. Evolutionary and paleogeographical implications are also discussed.

Melittosphex burmensis (Melittosphecidae) is an important apoid fossil from middle Cretaceous (~100 Ma) amber from Myanmar (Burma). Melittosphex exhibits a combination of wasp and bee features making it an important transitional form linking bees with crabronid wasps. The presence of branched hairs suggests that it was a pollen-collector and many aspects of the morphology suggest that it is more closely related to bees than to any fossil or extant group of wasps. Here we report additional morphological information on Melittosphex burmensis. This specimen remains the earliest body-fossil evidence that pollen-collecting Apoidea (bees) were present approximately 20 million years after the origin of the eudicots (~120 Ma), the major angiosperm lineage with extensive reliance on bee pollination.

A nearly complete skeleton of an adult Hawaiian flightless ibis (Apteribis sp.) was recovered from a vaulted dry lava tube in association with remains of contour feathers. This is the first documentation of the genus Apteribis from the island of Lanai and provides the only record of the nature of the plumage in any of the prehistorically extinct species of birds known from the Hawaiian Islands. Light and scanning electron microscope analyses of structure of the pennaceous and plumulaceous (downy) portions of these feathers confirmed their placement with the ibises (Threskiornithidae). Within that family, the microscopic structure of the downy feathers is most similar to that of the New World ibises of the genus Eudocimus, thus corroborating molecular evidence of the derivation of Apteribis from Eudocimus. Plumage color was a combination of brown-black and ivory-beige/light brown suggestive of that of juveniles of Eudocimus. Plumage coloration in Apteribis may thus have evolved through the same processes of paedomorphosis that gave rise to flightlessness.

Extraordinarily rare phosphatized embryos liberated from fossiliferous limestone of the Middle Cambrian (about 500 Myr old) Gaotai Formation of Duyun, southern China, are assigned to Markuelia qianensis n. sp. Several specimens with increasing numbers of blastomeres may represent four successive cleavage stages, seemingly exhibiting a radial holoblastic cleavage pattern. No subsequent stages showing gastrulation were observed. However, several specimens are late, pre-hatching stages, each with a vermiform shape coiled in either left-or right-handed directions within the fertilization envelope. These specimens indicate that the intuitively assumed difference in preservation potential between early cleavage and late pre-hatching stages is probably not valid. This new material clarifies the affinity of the first fossilized invertebrate embryos ever described, from the same rocks, which were originally attributed to arthropods, presumably trilobites. Instead, they belong to scalidophorans, and this finding infers likely diversified cleavage patterns for stem members of this group, and yields fresh insight into the embryogenesis of early metazoans as a whole.

Redescription of the genus Anomalosaepia shows that the anomalous characters reported as defining the genus are partly preservational artifacts resulting from dissolution of aragonite from a skeleton composed of both calcite and aragonite. Thus, the presence of a slit-shaped opening and canal-like cavity in the skeleton is not supported. The skeleton of Anomalosaepia is composed of subequal amounts of aragonite and calcite, with an inner layer composed of radial-prismatic and fan-radial aragonite and an outer layer of elongate, non-prismatic calcite crystals secreted by the animal. The calcite microstructure has not been previously described. A new family, Anomalosaepiidae, is established and one new species, A. parmula, described. The species A. mariettani and A. andreanae are synonomized with A. alleni. The species A. jeletzkyi is valid and A. vernei is probably valid, but needs more documentation. Examination of North American and European specimens reveals that a bimineralic composition is a characteristic feature of species in the families Anomalosaepiidae and Belosaepiidae and implies that, in general, sepioids have a bimineralic skeleton with some calcite.

Abundant and diverse dinosaur footprints have been discovered recently on bedding surfaces of the Lower Cretaceous Patuxent Formation of Maryland and Virginia. Found along with those ichnofossils is a fossil preserved partially as natural casts and partially as natural molds of a baby nodosaurid ankylosaur so small as to justify interpreting it as a hatchling. Despite the rather unusual type of preservation, the find is properly termed a body fossil and not an ichnite, per se, because it records not the action of an organism, but the body form and bone structure (including partial articulation) of a dinosaur. We here name it Propanoplosaurus marylandicus and provide a description of its diagnostic characteristics. Although actual skeletal remains referable to P. marylandicus have not been found in the Patuxent Formation, other nodosaurids recognized from skeletal remains are known from both the Lower and Upper Cretaceous strata of the Western Interior of North America and Europe. P. marylandicus represents the only diagnostic nodosaurid from the Early Cretaceous of the eastern U.S.A., provides information on growth patterns among nodosaurids, and is the first direct evidence of a dinosaur hatchling and, deductively, nesting, on the entire eastern seaboard.

An Erpetopus trackway recorded in the Lower Permian Collio Formation (Orobic Alps, northern Italy) is investigated as a source of data to reconstruct ancestral patterns of locomotion in eureptiles. The inferred small-sized captorhinid-“protorothyridid” producer cut an inclined muddy surface dragging its front limb digits, tail, and belly on the ground. Integrating ichnological and anatomical data we suggest that small captorhinids (“protorothyridids”) locomotion was performed with an obligatory, rigid sprawling posture with the trunk only slightly lifted from the substrate in a low, sprawled ‘belly walk’.

Castor, the extant beaver, is an important member of North American and Eurasian communities, altering ecosystems and landscapes wherever it occurs. Castor has a fossil record extending back to the late Miocene in Europe, Asia, and North America. The origin and early evolution of this genus is unclear but it likely originated in Eurasia and subsequently dispersed to North America from Asia in the late Miocene. A new record of Castor from the Rattlesnake Formation of Oregon represents the earliest occurrence of the genus in North America. The age of this new find is inferred through radiometric and magnetostratigraphic dating to be between 7.05 and 7.3 Ma. This age is supported by the co-occurrence of another beaver, Dipoides stirtoni, which is characteristic of early Hemphillian deposits. This find indicates that Castor had dispersed to North America by the early Hemphillian, and helps resolve the timing of divergence between North American and Eurasian beavers. The Rattlesnake Formation specimens are not differentiable from other North American specimens of C. californicus in morphology or size. This suggests Castor changed little after dispersing to North America, whereas the endemic castoroidine beavers changed dramatically after its arrival.

Recent collecting provided fossil chitons (Mollusca, Polyplacophora) from upper Eocene to lower Oligocene deposits of Washington State, U.S.A. The study material consists of 140 valves from six localities in the Quimper, Makah, Lincoln Creek, Crescent and Gries Ranch formations. The material is mostly incomplete or very fragmented and/or worn so that a precise appreciation of diagnostic features has been in many cases difficult if not impossible. Fourteen species were identified, seven are described as new: Lepidopleurus propecajetanus n. sp., Leptochiton sp., Ischnochiton goederti n. sp., Ischnochiton? sp. A, Ischnochiton? sp. B, Stenoplax quimperensis n. sp., Stenoplax sp. A, Stenoplax sp. B, Lepidozona cowlitzensis n. sp., Lepidochitona lioplax (Berry, 1922), Lepidochitona washingtonensis n. sp., Lepidochitona squiresi n. sp., Lepidochitona sp. and Craspedochiton eernissei n. sp. The only species previously described from the study area is Lepidochitona lioplax and it is also the most common chiton in the study material (67% of the total). No species other than L. lioplax has been found in more than one locality. In four of these localities only a single species has been collected. The basal Lincoln Creek Formation at the Porter Creek site supplied the richest and most diverse chiton assemblage with seven species and 86% of the valves. The discovery and formal identification of such a diverse Paleogene fauna from the northeastern Pacific provides a comparative base for a better appreciation of Polyplacophora biogeography and evolution.

Three new specimens of middle Eocene cetaceans are reported from the Pisco Basin of southern Peru. All three specimens originate from the Paracas Formation and their minimum age is constrained to about 37 Ma using 40Ar/39Ar dating of ash collected ~100 m up section from the source localities. Two new genera of archaeocete cetaceans are described along with additional material of another distinctive protocetid, which is not named pending the discovery of more complete material. Phylogenetic analysis resolves the two new genera within Basilosauridae, while the unnamed protocetid is closely related to Eocetus. The discovery of crownward protocetids in South America demonstrates that early cetaceans may have dispersed into both hemispheres prior to evolving a fully aquatic lifestyle. Geochronologic constraints on the age of new Peruvian archaeocetes establish them as the oldest whales from South America and among the oldest known from the Southern Hemisphere, which highlights the need for better sampling of marginal marine rocks from this part of the world.

An exceptionally well-preserved specimen of Leptochiton sp. attached to a brachiopod valve is described from the early Eocene beds of the La Meseta Formation, Seymour Island. It records the first fossil Polyplacophora from Antarctica. The small specimen has eight imbricating valves, rounded lateral margins, ribs of fine granules, and growth marks in all valves. It strongly resembles extant Antarctic and South American species of Leptochiton Gray. The record of articulate valves in fossil Polyplacophora is rare and requires exceptional preservational conditions. Leptochiton sp. is associated with well preserved bryozoans, brachiopods, asterozoan echinoids, and serpulids, among other organisms that inhabited hard substrates in normal marine conditions, and probably lived attached to the side walls of an incised valley eroded in Cretaceous sediments. The well-preserved fossils were probably removed from their attachment site during storm events and, after a short transportation, rapidly buried within the early Eocene valley-fill deposits. The fossil-bearing beds are included in the Telm 2 or Acantilados Allomember of the La Meseta Formation.

Assemblages of the boat-shaped bivalve Odontogryphaea thirsae (Gabb, 1861) from southwestern Alabama are used to define three ontogenetic growth stages that are bounded by major discontinuities in either mineral structure or growth-line prominence. Features of the larval and juvenile stages are described here for the first time and are compared with the well-known morphologic features that distinguish adults (late dissoconchs).

The larval stage is represented by prodissoconch valves which are about 0.4 mm in height with suborbicular outlines, commarginal striations, and ridge-like, opisthogyral beaks. The juvenile (early dissoconch) stage is expressed by dissoconch valves up to 19 mm in height with elliptical outlines (height > length), indistinct commarginal growth lines, flat commissural planes, and tiny attachment areas on left valves; the valve interiors exhibit a posterior adductor muscle scar, a resilifer, and chomata. The adult (late dissoconch) stage is characterized by dissoconch valves >19 mm in height with subtriangular outlines, prominent commarginal growth lines, wavy commissural planes, and a keel-like terebratuloid fold.

Paleonvironmental and stratigraphic studies of the diversely fossiliferous Odontogryphaea thirsae beds indicate 0. thirsae (Gabb, 1861) thrived in a shallow, normal-marine, tropical sea that extended from Texas to Georgia about 57 million years ago.

Abundant and diverse microfossils from shales of the uppermost Ura Formation, central Siberia, document early to middle Ediacaran life along the southeastern margin of the Siberian Platform. The Ura Formation is well exposed in a series of sections in the Lena River basin but the best microfossil assemblages come from a locality along the Ura River. Here, the uppermost twenty meters of the formation contain diverse microfossils exceptionally well preserved as organic compressions. Fossils include nearly two dozen morphospecies of large acanthomorphic microfossils attributable to the Ediacaran Complex Acanthomorph Palynoflora (ECAP), a distinctive assemblage known elsewhere only from lower, but not lowermost, to middle Ediacaran rocks. Discovery of ECAP in strata previously considered Mesoproterozoic through Cryogenian confirms inferences from chemostratigraphy, dramatically changing stratigraphic interpretation of sedimentary successions and Proterozoic tectonics on the Siberian Platform. Systematic paleontology is reported for 36 taxa (five described informally) assigned to 23 genera of both eukaryotic and prokaryotic microfossils. One new genus and two new species are proposed: Ancorosphaeridium magnum n. gen. n. sp. and A. minor n. gen. n. sp.