We report on the faunal transition of benthic foraminifera during the middle Eocene at Site U1333 (4862 m water depth, 3,560–3,720 m paleo-water depth) of Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 320 in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. During the period ∼41.5–40.7 Ma, which includes carbonate accumulation event 3 (CAE-3), the benthic foraminiferal accumulation rate (BFAR) increased gradually and then it declined rapidly. In contrast, BFAR was considerably lower during ∼40.7–39.4 Ma, corresponding to the middle Eocene climatic optimum (MECO), and then it increased during ∼39.3–38.4 Ma, including CAE-4. Diversity (E [S200]) was slightly lower in the upper part of the study interval than in the lower part. The most common benthic foraminifera were Nuttallides truempyi, Oridorsalis umbonatus, and Gyroidinoides spp. in association with Globocassidulina globosa and Cibicidoides grimsdalei during the period studied. Quadrimorphina profunda occurred abundantly with N. truempyi, O. umbonatus, and G. globosa during ∼39.4–38.4 Ma, including CAE-4, although this species was also relatively common in the lower part of the study interval. Virgulinopsis navarroanus and Fursenkoina sp. A, morphologically infaunal taxa, were common during ∼38.8–38.4 Ma, corresponding to the late stage of CAE-4. Based on Q-mode cluster analysis, four sample clusters were recognized and their stratigraphic distributions were generally discriminated in the lower and upper parts of the study interval. Thus, there was only a small faunal transition in the abyssal eastern equatorial Pacific during the middle to late-middle Eocene. The faunal transition recognized in this study may be related to recovery processes following intense carbonate corrosiveness in the eastern equatorial Pacific during MECO.

Ischyromys, the most abundant early Oligocene rodent from the Great Plains, has been considered by some workers to represent a single gradually evolving lineage comprising three or more chronospecies. Statistical investigation of large samples suggest instead that two closely related species coexisted, and the shift in mean size that was thought to represent anagenesis actually represents replacement. In Nebraska and eastern Wyoming both I. parvidens (small) and I. typus (large) were rare but of equal abundance in the Chadronian, I. parvidens was more prevalent in the early Orellan, and I. typus was more prevalent in the middle and late Orellan. In northeastern Colorado, northern South Dakota, and North Dakota I. typus is the only species of Ischyromys found in Orellan deposits, thus showing that the two species had differing geographic ranges.

The mean size of I. typus does increase up section at all localities, but this change is minor and not deserving of chronospecies recognition. Much of this change occurred in the latest Orellan and earliest Whitneyan as I. typus approached extinction, and it was accomplished mostly by loss of small individuals rather than a shift of the entire distribution. Rate of evolutionary change in Ischyromys is found to be inversely correlated with population size, and no new species arose during the Orellan when Ischyromys was most abundant.

Recently collected specimens of Catopsalis fissidens from the Torrejonian interval of the Nacimiento Formation in the San Juan Basin, New Mexico significantly augment knowledge of the morphology and dental variability of the species. This new knowledge suggests C. foliatus Cope, 1882 (=C. johnstoni Fox, 1989) is a valid Puercan species and that C. fissidens Cope, 1884a is a subjective senior synonym of C. utahensis Gazin, 1939. This latter synonymy further increases taxa shared between the Dragon Canyon local fauna of Utah and the Torrejonian fauna of the San Juan Basin, thus supporting previous inclusion of the Dragonian land-mammal “age” in the Torrejonian.

Although numerical methods are highly useful in paleontological studies, potential problems arise with application of parametric statistical methods to paleontological data. Most common statistical tests assume data are normally distributed and that multiple populations have equal variances (homoscedasticity). Paleontological data frequently do not satisfy these assumptions, thereby affecting results of tests and potentially misleading scientific interpretations. Nonparametric tests should be used when assumptions of parametric tests are violated. Normal scores tests, which utilize expected normal deviates (rankits) substituted for original data, are the most powerful nonparametric tests. Despite their potential utility, normal scores tests have received little attention, primarily because of difficulties encountered with rankit conversion.

Recent advances in microcomputer technology provide viable methods for rankit conversion, thus making normal scores tests accessible for routine application. Normal scores tests provide a practical method of dealing with nonnormality and heteroscedasticity common in paleontological data.

A fossil counterpart to ths extant marine noncalcareous green algal genus Caulerpa was recovered from Permian (Wolfcampian) marine sediments of the Palo Duro Basin, a part of the larger Permian Basin, West Texas. These fossil algal remains were recognized in core from the Department of Energy/Stone and Webster Engineering Corporation No. 1 Zeech well (Figure 1). The fossil form is described and compared to a morphologically similar extant species of Caulerpa. The geologic setting of the Palo Duro Basin is also briefly described as is the environment in which the modern algal genus Caulerpa lives.

The new species Cyathophycus pseudoreticulatus and a fragment of Cyathophycus reticulatus? Walcott, 1879, are described and reported from the lower part of the Upper Member of the Vinini Formation from black shale of late Whiterockian age. The sponges were collected from the north fork of Vinini Creek, in the north-central part of the Roberts Mountains, Eureka County, Nevada.

Abundant isolated elements of cornute and mitrate stylophorans were recovered from the upper Tremadocian Tumugol Formation in the Taebaeksan Basin, Korea. Cornute skeletal elements comprise a diverse assemblage of marginals and brachials of cothurnocystid affinities, suggesting the presence of no fewer than four different species. Mitrate remains include numerous isolated adorals, marginals, and aulacophoral plates with typical peltocystidan morphologies. Two adorals are identified as Anatifopsis sp., while all the others are attributable to A. cocaban. However, the two previously documented peltocystidans of Korea, A. cocaban and A. truncata, are sufficiently distinct from other Anatifopsis species to warrant assignment to a new genus, Taebaekocystis. Cladistic analyses suggest that Lagynocystida is the sister group of the clade uniting peltocystidans and mitrocystitidans and that the adorals of Taebaekocystis n. gen. and associated isolated peltocystidan elements possibly account for several different types of peltocystidans, intermediate in morphology between Peltocystidae and Kirkocystidae.

The Chesterian Imo Formation of northern Arkansas represents the highest Mississippian strata present on the Ozark platform and contains a unique, although sparse, coral fauna that is transitional between Mississippian and Pennsylvanian assemblages. Of the four most abundant genera represented, Lophophyllidium, Bradyphyllum, and Tectamichelinia are characteristic of Pennsylvanian assemblages and only Amplexizaphrentis is a typical Mississippian form. The fauna is interpreted as part of a shallow-water, muddy bottom community. Of the 11 rugosans and single tabulate coral described, the following are new: Bradyphyllum lesliense n. sp., Amplexizaphrentis maneri n. sp., Lophophyllidium imoense n. sp., and Tectamichelinia mangeri n. gen. and sp.

Glabellar lobes of holaspid cranidia of trilobites have been numerically designated, LI, L2, etc. (Jaanusson, 1956; Henningsmoen, 1957, figure 1), or lp, 2p, etc. (Harrington, 1959), forward from the occipital ring; most trilobites have four glabellar lobes and an occipital ring. The description of morphological structures with an identical term implies that the structures are homologous in different organisms of a certain group (Inglis, 1966); this is one of the classical definitions of homology (Patterson, 1982). This also seems to be an initial conjecture of homology (“primary homology” of de Pinna, 1991). Likewise, the numerical notation of glabellar lobes should allow us to recognize homology of the lobes among trilobite taxa. Under the above traditional system, the homology is demonstrably recognized in ontogenetic stages with a distinctively differentiated protopygidium (stage 2 in Figure 1); however, this is not the case for earlier intervals occurring before transverse demarcation at the back of the head (stage 1 in Figure 1). This limitation is because the relationships of the occipital ring of the later stages to the posterior axial lobes of the earlier ones are uncertain, and this can be appreciated, when describing a phacopoid protaspis with four axial lobes (stage 1 of Rossaspis pliomeris in Figure 1). We introduce a new term, “Lp”, for the posteriormost axial lobe to remove this limitation, while keeping the traditional system useful. The previous system using letters “L” (after lobus) and “S” (after sulcus), proposed by Jaanusson (1956, p. 37), is preferred over the system using “p”, because “p” of the latter confusingly refers to lobes or furrows (e.g., Harrington and Leanza, 1957, p. 221)

A single specimen of a likely sphaeromatoid isopod is described from the Upper Bathonian of northern France at Ranville, Normandy. The remarkable three-dimensional preservation consists of only the head and first pereionite, but clearly constitutes a new genus and species, Reboursia ranvillensis.

Two new isocrinids are described from the Lower Cretaceous Agrio Formation of the Neuquén Basin, west-central Argentina. Isocrinus (Chladocrinus) covuncoensis new species is based on several beautifully preserved specimens from Valanginian beds of the Pilmatué Member. It is characterized by a small size, multiramose crown with six arm divisions, 240 arm tips, mostly isotomous branching, seven (or rarely eight) secundibrachials, smooth and stout column, short noditaxis, and pentalobate columnals. The species occurs in a 30 m thick interval of cross-bedded sandstones and mixed clastic-carbonate sediments that represent the migration of large, tidally influenced, subaqueous dunes developed in the offshore. Sudden burial of crinoids that dwelled on the dune toes and interdunes, possibly by the acceleration of the lee face migration, provided the exceptional preservation of specimens and thus this finding can be considered as a local crinoid Konservat Lagerstätte. Isocrinus (Chladocrinus) pehuenchensis new species is described from a single articulated specimen preserved in a silty calcareous concretion collected from a late Hauterivian concretion level of the Agua de la Mula Member. It is characterized by isotomous branching, eight or nine secundibrachials (IIBr), slender column ornamented with medial ridge of fine tubercles, interradius acuminated with fine tubercles on its tip, short noditaxis, and pentastellate columnals. It is associated with low-energy fall-out deposits in the offshore. The excellent state of preservation was due to an early cementation process by carbonate that enhanced lithification around the specimen.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/4763ae70-9d0a-4015-b1c9-6a7ceeedfb1a

The Cretaceous landmass of Appalachia has preserved an understudied but nevertheless important record of dinosaurs that has recently come under some attention. In the past few years, the vertebrate faunas of several Appalachian sites have been described. One such locality, the Ellisdale site of the Cretaceous Marshalltown Formation of New Jersey, has produced hundreds of remains assignable to dinosaurs, including those of hadrosauroids of several size classes, indeterminate ornithopods, indeterminate theropods, the teeth, cranial, and appendicular elements of dromaeosaurids, ornithomimosaurians, and tyrannosauroids, and an extensive microvertebrate assemblage. The theropod dinosaur record of the Ellisdale site is currently the most extensive and diverse known from the Campanian of Appalachia. Study of the Ellisdale theropod specimens suggests that at least four or more non-avian theropod taxa are represented at the site, including tyrannosauroids, ornithomimosaurs, several different morphotypes of dromaeosaurids that are the first of that clade described from New Jersey, and indeterminate theropods. The specimens are important for increasing current knowledge about the theropod diversity of the Atlantic Coastal Plain (ACP) during the Campanian by representing the most speciose assemblage of the group during the time in the ACP as well as for shedding light on Appalachian dinosaur ecology and biogeography generally.

Neotryplasma floweri n. sp. is an epizoic solitary rugose coral characterized by two orders of perforate, monacanthine, carinate septa, a complex axial structure of septal lobes and lamellae, and a well developed broad dissepimentarium. It occurs in the Late Ordovician (late Edenian to earliest Maysvillian; late Caradoc) Upham Dolomite Member of the Second Value Dolomite, Montoya Group, at El Paso, Texas, U.S.A. Neotryplasma Kaljo, 1957, also includes two Late Ordovician species from the Estonian S.S.R. and one from the late Middle and Late Ordovician of the northern and middle Ural region, U.S.S.R. This genus is assigned to the Neotryplasmatidae n. fam., which is placed in the Suborder Monacanthina Neuman, 1984.

Neotryplasma appears to be closest to Sumsarophyllum Lavrusevich, 1971a, from the Late Ordovician of the Zeravshan-Gissar region, U.S.S.R. This is noteworthy because Erina (1978) and Erina and Kim (1980) suggested that the latter may be a scleractinian coral of the Order Fungiida Verrill, 1865. The rugosan mode of septal insertion has been confirmed in Neotryplasma. N. floweri seems to bear close resemblance to a poorly known Ordovician coral, Cyathophyllum (?) kjerulfi Kiaer, 1932, from Caradoc–Ashgill strata in the Trondheim region of Norway.

Kinosternon Spix, 1824, was widespread in xeric to savanna associated paleowetlands across North America during the middle–late Miocene and steadily diversified following its first occurrences in the Hemingfordian. In the middle Miocene, Kinosternon rincon n. sp. occurred in the late Barstovian Cerro Conejo Formation of north central New Mexico, perhaps concurrently with Kinosternon pojoaque Bourque 2012a from the Tesuque Formation. Subsequent late Miocene kinosternine fossils indicate that at least three potentially contemporaneous species existed throughout the Clarendonian. These are Kinosternon pannekollops n. sp., from the Ogallala Formation of northern Texas; Kinosternon wakeeniense, n. sp., from the Ogallala Formation of northwestern Kansas and Ash Hollow Formation of south-central Nebraska; and Kinosternon notolophus n. sp., from the Alachua and Statenville formations of northern Florida. Kinosternon rincon is phylogenetically nested between the Kinosternon flavescens (Agassiz, 1857) group (=Platythyra Agassiz, 1857) and more derived Kinosternon including the Kinosternon subrubrum (Lacépède, 1788) group (=Thyrosternum Agassiz, 1857). Kinosternon pannekollops is recovered on the stem of the K. subrubrum group and is the oldest and largest member of that lineage. Kinosternon notolophus is readily differentiated from other Miocene Kinosternon in possessing a distinct dorsomedial keel on the nuchal and faint dorsolateral costal carination. The K. subrubrum group probably originated in the late Miocene savannas of the Great Plains and dispersed eastward via the Gulf Coastal Plain. An unnamed kinosternine taxon existed in the coastal plains of the eastern and southeastern United States during the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (with fossils from ~18 to 15 Ma), and disappeared from the region coincident with the end of that megathermal event.

A rich echinoid fauna within the middle Miocene carbonate sedimentary succession cropping out along the coast between Santa Caterina di Pittinuri and S'Archittu (central-western Sardinia) allows the comparison of faunal gradients and preservation potentials from both hard and soft substrata. Three echinoid assemblages are recognized. Faunal composition, as well as taphonomic and sedimentological features and functional morphological interpretation of the echinoid test indicate an outer sublittoral setting. Assemblage 1 represents a highly structured environment within the photic zone, with mobile substrata occupied by infaunal irregular echinoids, mainly spatangoids, and localized hard substrata, provided by rhodolith beds, with epibenthic regular echinoids represented by the co-occurrence of the diadematid Diadema Gray, 1825 and the toxopneustids Tripneustes L. Agassiz, 1841 and Schizechinus Pomel, 1869. Assemblage 2 shows a higher diversity of irregular echinoids, dominated by the clypeasteroids Echinocyamus van Phelsum, 1774 and Clypeaster Lamarck, 1801 and different spatangoids, with the minute trigonocidarid Genocidaris A. Agassiz, 1869 among regular echinoids. This assemblage points to a soft-bottom environment with moderate water-energy conditions, periodically affected by storms. A low-diversity echinoid fauna in Assemblage 3, dominated by the spatangoids Brissopsis L. Agassiz, 1840 and Ova Gray, 1825, documents a deeper, soft-bottom environment, possibly below storm-wave base. These results indicate that the diversity of echinoid faunas originating in sublittoral environments is related to: (1) the presence of both soft and hard substrata, (2) differential preservation potentials of the various echinoid taxa, (3) intense bioturbation, and (4) sediment deposition by sporadic storm events.

The important mid-Telychian biozonal index species Monoclimacis griestoniensis (Nicol, 1850) is redescribed and distinguished from two new species: Monoclimacis directa (formerly the ‘Monograptus cf. griestoniensis’ of Elles and Wood, 1911), and Monoclimacis woodae. Stratigraphically, directa appears a little before griestoniensis, whilst woodae is from the late griestoniensis to early crenulata Biozone.

Basal strata of the Tucumcari Formation south of San Jon, New Mexico, contain a bivalve assemblage different from that of the remainder of the formation. Ceratostreon texanum and two new species herein described (Gyrostrea hinchada, Plicatula quayensis) are the dominant faunal elements of these basal strata. A fourth bivalve, long known as Lopha quadriplicata, ranges downward approximately to the upper limit of C. texanum. However, reevaluation of the taxonomy of this and related species indicates that 1) they have little in common with typical representatives of Lopha and are grouped in a new genus, Peilinia, and 2) specimens from the Tucumcari and related formations formerly assigned to L. quadriplicata are a separate new species, P. levicostata, which appeared in the southern Western Interior before P. quadriplicata appeared in eastern Texas and Oklahoma. The biostratigraphic ranges of several widely distributed bivalves are utilized with ammonite range zones to refine the correlation of several southern Western Interior sequences with the classic lower Washita sequence of Texas and Oklahoma. Because ammonites are rare in the western area, bivalves are locally more important in establishing the age of some exposures. For example, the boundary between or slight overlap of the successive zones of C. texanum and P. levicostata in eastern New Mexico and west-central Texas marks the position of the Craginites serratescens ammonite zone to the east. Strata previously called Kiamichi and Duck Creek in west-central Texas are best considered part of the Tucumcari Formation, representing deposition that occurred mainly earlier than the main Tucumcari sequence in New Mexico.

The Fossil Hill Member of the Prida Formation (Fossil Hill, Nevada) yields one of the most continuous records of Middle Triassic conodont evolution currently known. Because of different taxonomic viewpoints, this record has been alternately interpreted to represent either morphological stasis or gradual, biostratigraphically significant morphogenesis. Univariate and multivariate morphometric analysis of 18 successive Neogondolella Pa element populations suggests that the majority of specimens at Fossil Hill (including N. constricta emend. sensu Nicora and Kovacs, 1984) belong to a single, morphologically diverse species, Neogondolella mombergensis (Tatge). Time series of individual character means from 18 stratigraphic horizons in the Fossil Hill display nondirectional morphologic trends for which a random walk model cannot be rejected. Time series of transformed multivariate means constitute biologs that may prove useful in regional correlation.

This paper documents 22 species of lower Carboniferous bivalves (Visean) from the Ceshui Formation (Datang Stage) of Guangdong Province, South China. Among these, the genus Glyptoconcha and the species Glyptoconcha elegans, Palaeoneilo guangdongensis, and Neocypricardinia simplex are new. This study enriches the early Carboniferous bivalve record and provides information for biostratigraphic subdivision of the lower Carboniferous of South China.

The brachiopod genus Verneuilia Hall and Clarke, 1893, is recognized for the first time in North America, where it is represented by a new species described here, V. langenstrasseni. This occurrence not only extends the geographic range of the genus, but also the lower age and stratigraphic limit into the Eifelian (early Middle Devonian). Previously, the oldest known species was the type, V. cheiropteryx d'Archiac and de Verneuil, 1842, from the Givetian (late Middle Devonian) of Germany. Internal structures of V. langenstrasseni n. sp. are similar to those of genera in the ambocoeliid subfamily Rhynchospiriferinae, providing the first good evidence of a systematic relationship.