Some 40 brachiopod species are known from the localities of Kilbucho and Wallace’s Cast in the Kirkcolm Formation in the Northern Belt of the Southern Uplands of Scotland. The fauna is diverse despite the relatively small numbers of brachiopod specimens (c. 180) available for study. Much of the fauna was transported downslope and is locally preserved in obtrution deposits. It represents a broad census of outer shelf and upper slope palaeocommunities around this part of the Laurentian margin during the early Katian, and is dominated by relatively small plectambonitoid brachiopods. When compared with other circum-Iapetus assemblages, the brachiopods from the Southern Uplands compare most closely with those from the Bardahessiagh Formation, Pomeroy, Northern Ireland, rather than with adjacent, well-known faunas from the Girvan district, SW Scotland. These new data suggest that this part of the Southern Uplands was located in closer proximity to Pomeroy than Girvan, and located in deep-water environments similar to those in the upper parts of the Bardahessiagh Formation.

The morphology of the amphibamid temnospondyl amphibian Platyrhinops lyelli from the Middle Pennsylvanian of Linton, Ohio is reassessed from previously described and undescribed specimens. Newly reported or newly significant features include the presence of bicuspid marginal teeth, anteriorly widened frontals, elongate choanae, a broad rhomboidal sphenethmoid and a pair of flattened blade-like ceratohyals. One specimen shows an unusual distribution of tooth sizes along the premaxillaries. No derived characters can be found to justify reference of the species lyelli to the genus Amphibamus as represented by its type species A. grandiceps, but Platyrhinops does belong to the ‘Amphibamus branch’ of the Amphibamidae.

Foraminiferal, algal and problematica assemblages from the Mississippian (late Viséan and early Serpukhovian) Lower Limestone Formation have been studied in order to validate lithostratigraphical correlations of limestones within the central and western parts of the Midland Valley of Scotland. Analysis of more than 100 outcrops allows recognition of four calcareous microfossil assemblages, which span the late Brigantian and early Pendleian, and enables a detailed correlation to be made within the Central Coalfield (north Lanarkshire) and with the thinner sequences to the west (north Ayrshire), to the south (Douglas area, south Lanarkshire), and to the east (Bathgate area, West Lothian). The age of the Lower Limestone Formation is modified because the upper part of this formation is now assigned to the Pendleian (due to the first occurrences of new foraminiferans and the co-occurrence with the Namurian goniatites), and some individual limestone horizons within the formation are repositioned, or their precise correlation with other limestones is established. A refined stratigraphical framework is proposed for the above noted areas, and a correlation between them and the Pennine region in northern England is proposed, passing through the Archerbeck Borehole sequence in the Scottish Borders.

A detailed account of the morphology and ontogeny of the late Middle Cambrian crustacean †Henningsmoenicaris scutula is presented. Ten successive ontogenetic stages could be recognised in the material collected from various localities in Sweden. Morphogenetic changes include the development of a pair of stalked lateral eyes and the increase in the number and size of appendages and their setal armature. Notably, early stages lack ‘proximal endites’ on all post-antennular appendages; such a spine-bearing endite has previously been thought to appear simultaneously on these limbs. In †H. scutula a single functional endite appears on the third limb in an advanced stage; an additional endite appears on the second limb and, subsequently, further endites appear on more posterior limbs. Furthermore, a single specimen of †Sandtorpia vestrogothiensis gen. et sp. nov. is described. Based on this new information and data of other ‘Orsten’ taxa, particularly those assigned already to the early evolutionary lineage of Crustacea, a small-scale computer-based phylogenetic analysis was performed. This resolved the basal branchings of Crustacea s. l. as follows: †Oelandocarididae (=†Oelandocaris oelandica+†H. scutula+†S. vestrogothiensis)+(†Cambropachycopidae (=†Goticaris longispinosa+†Cambropachycope clarksoni)+ (†Martinssonia elongata+Labrophora (=†Phosphatocopina+Eucrustacea))). Plotting ontogenetic data on the phylogram and comparing the ground pattern at every node led to the detection of three peramorphic heterochronic events in the evolutionary lineage towards Eucrustacea.