Spiral coprolites from the Upper Cretaceous of North America are poorly known. Enterospirae (fossilized intestines) reported from the Upper Cretaceous Niobrara Formation of western Kansas (Stewart, 1978) were disputed by McAllister (1985), who felt they represented spiral coprolites similar to those described from the Permian by Neumayer (1904). Previously described coprolites from the Upper Cretaceous of Alberta are small, unstructured, ellipsoidal forms thought to derive from a crocodilian or terrestrial, carnivorous reptile of necrophagic or piscivorous habits (Waldman, 1970; Waldman and Hopkins, 1970).

A new genus and species of raninid crab, Rogueus orri, is described from the Tenmile Member of the Lookingglass Formation in southwestern Oregon. Based upon previous studies of foraminiferans, the rock unit has been assigned an early middle Eocene age. Distinct from other raninids with its sinuous fronto-orbital margin, bifid rostrum, and uniquely branched anterolateral teeth, Rogueus orri may be descended from Notopocorystes (Cretacoranina) fritschi.

Kellogg (1936, p. 242) described “an imperfectly preserved dorsal vertebra” from Texas, which he assigned to the primitive cetacean genus Protocetus. McLeod and Barnes (1990), however, were the first to report unequivocal protocetid remains from the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Since then, Hulbert and Petkewich (1991) and Hulbert (1993) have noted a well-preserved skeleton of a protocetid cetacean from middle Eocene deposits in Georgia. The purpose of this note is to report the recent discovery of additional protocetid remains from the coastal plain of South Carolina and to discuss their stratigraphic and biostratigraphic context.

Silurian and Devonian bivalves recovered from the Los Espejos (Silurian to Lower Devonian) and Talacasto (Devonian) Formations of the Northern Precordillera Mountain belt are described and illustrated. The fauna comprises some new nuculoids Deceptrix (Devonodeceptrix) jachalensis n. subgen. and n. sp., Nuculites argentinum n. sp., and Anthracoleda (Pseudoleda) minuta n. subgen. and n. sp., as well as the new pterioid Actinopteria modesta n. sp. Additionally, many poorly known South American bivalves are redescribed and figured. Silurian–Devonian pelecypod faunas from some South American localities show differences both in diversity and in faunal composition. Causes for these differences are briefly discussed. Controls other than latitude are suggested in order to explain biogeographical affinities of the studied fauna.

A method of phylogenetic inference is proposed for taxa that are known from large samples spaced closely in time. The method employs elements of cladistic and stratophenetic methods, and consists of four steps. 1) Morphologically homogeneous clusters are recognized within temporally and geographically constrained samples. 2) Temporally disjunct and geographically dispersed taxa are recognized, and their anagenetic evolution and geographic variation documented. 3) A character matrix is constructed for the taxa and analyzed cladistically. 4) Resulting cladograms are used to construct a phylogenetic tree with additional input from temporal, morphological, ecological, and geographical data. This method supplements the use of cladistically analyzed morphological data with data that are not suited for cladistic analysis, and thus reduces the amount of unused data.

The gastropod Drepanochilus pervetus (Stanton) and the bivalve Cytrodaria rutupiensis (Morris) occur in the Mount Moore Formation at Strathcona Fiord, west-central Ellesmere Island, northern Canada. They are the first marine mollusks identified from the Eureka Sound Group of the Canadian arctic islands. These mollusks correlate with Paleocene faunas of the Cannonball Formation of North Dakota and South Dakota, the Prince Creek Formation of northern Alaska, the Barentsburg Formation of Svalbard, and the Thanet and Oldhaven Formations of southeastern England. These occurrences imply that the earliest Tertiary Arctic Ocean molluscan fauna was compositionally distinct from coeval faunas of the northern Atlantic Ocean.

The genus Palmoconcha in the family Loxoconchidae of Ostracoda is found in Cenozoic sediments from the North Pacific. the genus Palmoconcha from the North Pacific is divided into two morphological groups: One is the P. parapontica characterized by having a prominent murus along a posterodorsal margin. Another is the P. laevimarginata group characterized by the nonprominent murus. Both the P. parapontica and P. laevimarginata groups contain six species including a new species and six species, respectively. the P. parapontica group is distributed in only northwestern Pacific, whereas the P. laevimarginata group occurs in both the western and eastern sides of the North Pacific. the assemblages occupied by the P. parapontica group, together with Acanthocythereis, Falsobuntonia, and Robertsonites occur from deposits of Japan during the middle Miocene and the early Oligocene climatic cooling. They associate with temperate molluscan faunas, and are considered to have appeared in shelf environments under temperate realms around the Japanese Islands during the Oligocene and Miocene climatic cooling.

Four species including three new species from the Oligocene Waita Formation are also described.

The genus Neseuretus Hicks, 1873 is the most abundant trilobite of the Ordovician siltite succession of the Andouillé and Traveusot Formations in the French Armorican massif. The systematics of some species of Neseuretus is still unclear. Armorican and Iberian domains formed part of a distinctive paleobiogeographical province in the Ordovician and, while five Neseuretus species were defined in Iberia that follow each other through time, from the Middle to the Upper Ordovician, only one Neseuretus species, N. tristani, has been identified in the Armorican massif so far. The discovery of new fossil deposits in the Ménez-Belair syncline has led to the identification and re-description of three Neseuretus taxa: Neseuretus avus Hamman, 1977 from the early-middle Darriwilian, Neseuretus tristani (Brongniart in Desmarest, 1817) from the late–middle Darriwilian to late Darriwilian and Neseuretus tardus (Hammann, 1983) from the Darriwilian–Sandbian boundary and early Sandbian. Morphological characters of the cephalon and pygidium were determined that can definitively distinguish the three identified taxa. These results stem from both traditional and geometric (outline and landmark-based) morphometric analyses. The three taxa follow each other through time and constitute a morphological sequence that contributes to improving the stratigraphy of the Middle and Upper Ordovician.

The Lower Cambrian brachiopod Heliomedusa orienta Sun and Hou, 1987a, first identified as a jellyfish, was later described as a craniopsoid brachiopod. A new sample of 1,150 individuals of this brachiopod, measuring 3.1–22.0 mm long, from two new sites of the Lower Cambrian Yuanshan Formation was examined. the sample includes several with exceptional preservation of nonmineralized skeletons that reveal previously unknown features and fill a gap in our knowledge of the detailed anatomy of fossil discinids. It is here reinterpreted as a discinid brachiopod on the basis of its many distinctive, discinid anatomical features, such as a longitudinally oval pedicle foramen in the anterior region of the posterior sector of the ventral valve; inferred, short, but large pedicle descending ventrally from the ventral valve; inferred, paired rectus muscles in the large pedicle canal; elongate scars of paired anterior adductors; and a median septum connected to a U-shaped ridge on the ventral interior. the two growing zones of its exceptionally preserved, unique lophophore extend posteriorly instead of anteriorly as in all Recent inarticulate brachiopods. Its recognition as the first and earliest discinoidean extends its stratigraphic range from the Ordovician to the Lower Cambrian. This reassignment implies that the organophosphatic, pediculate lingulids and discinids evolved before the carbonate, nonpediculate craniopsids and craniids. Its occurrence at chronological proximity to the Cambrian explosion of small metazoans sheds light on the early morphological diversification and the adaptive radiation of the Lower Cambrian brachiopods into the available niches.

The small crinoidal patch reef in the Bird Spring Formation near the mouth of Battleship Wash, Clark County, Nevada, has yielded the largest Early Permian crinoid fauna known in North America. Earlier studies of the fauna were based on 535 specimens. Additional collecting has yielded another 239 specimens. These new specimens provide new information about some of the earlier described species and include three new genera and seven new species, bringing the total recognized in the Battleship Wash fauna to 37 genera and 62 species. Representatives of the camerates, disparids, primitive cladids (cyathocrinitids and dendrocrinids), advanced cladids (formerly poteriocriniids), flexibles, and articulates are recognized in the Battleship Wash fauna.

Of particular significance among these new specimens is the presence of an actinocrinid. A specimen formerly identified from the fauna is here recognized as an articulate. This is the first report of an actinocrinid and an articulate from the Permian of North America. Based on the abundance of large specimens of cladids with 10 or more arms, the Battleship Wash fauna is interpreted to have lived in a nearshore high energy shelf environment, which agrees with the paleogeographic position previously recognized for the Bird Spring Formation.

New taxa introduced are: Poteriocrinites permicus n. sp., Bridgerocrinidae n. fam., Ekteinocrinus battleshipensis n. gen. and sp., Arroyocrius brachiatus n. sp., Plummericrinus jelli n. sp., Plummericrinus? bulbosus n. sp., Aesiocrinidae n. fam., Elassocrinus cyathus n. gen. and sp., Oklahomacrinus triangulus n. sp., and Pentaxocrinus quinarius n. gen. and comb.

We document a speciation event between two species of Prunum (Marginellidae: Gastropoda) in Pliocene strata of the northern Dominican Republic. The ancestral species, P. coniforme, is widely distributed in the Mio-Pliocene of the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, and has a range of at least 11 m.y. The descendant species, P. christineladdae, is endemic to the northern Dominican Republic. The ancestral species persists after its descendant arises. The transition between species is marked by stratigraphic and morphologic intermediates, and occurs during an interval estimated to be between 73,000 and 275,000 years (representing 0.6-2.5 percent of the duration of the ancestral species). Although the transition takes more than a geologic instant, the overall pattern of morphologic change is best described by the model of punctuated equilibrium. The change between species apparently involved a habitat shift into deeper water, and occurred during accelerated deepening. All of the Neogene Dominican species of Prunum appear to have had depth-defined ranges.

Brachylepas americana n. sp. is described from abundant and well-preserved capitular and basal whorl plates from a littoral facies in the basal part of an Upper Cretaceous (upper Campanian) conglomerate questionably assigned to the Brownstown Formation in Hot Spring County, Arkansas. The new species resembles the European littoral Campanian–Maastrichtian species B. guascoi (Bosquet), and differs markedly from the only other known American species, B. angulosa Collins, from the Upper Cretaceous middle Ripley Formation of Mississippi. A few juvenile carinae of Virgiscalpellum may represent V. gabbi apertus Collins, previously known from the Ripley and basal Prairie Bluff Formations in Mississippi.

Early Norian silicified bivalves from Hells Canyon in the Wallowa terrane of northeastern Oregon are part of a rich molluscan biota associated with a tropical island arc. The Hells Canyon locality preserves lenses of silicified shells formed as tempestites in a shallow subtidal carbonate environment. These shell assemblages are parautochthonous and reflect local, rather than long-distance, transport. Silicification at this locality involved small-scale replacement of original calcareous microstructures, or small-scale replacement of neomorphosed shells, without an intervening phase of moldic porosity. This incremental replacement of carbonate by silica contrasts markedly with void-filling silicification textures reported previously from silicified Permian bivalve assemblages.

The bivalve paleoecology of this site indicates a suspension feeding biota existing on and within the interstices of coral-spongiomorph thickets, and inhabiting laterally adjacent substrates of peloidal carbonate sand. The bivalve fauna is ecologically congruent with the reef-dwelling molluscs associated with Middle Triassic sponge-coral buildups in the Cassian Formation of the Dolomites (Fuersich and Wendt, 1977). Hells Canyon is a particularly important early Norian locality because of the diversity of substrate types and because the site includes many first occurrences of bivalves in the North American Cordillera. These first occurrences include the first documentation of the important epifaunal families Pectinidae and Terquemiidae in Triassic rocks of the North American Cordillera.

The large number of biogeographic and geochronologic range extensions discovered in this single tropical Norian biota indicates that use of literature-based range data for Late Triassic bivalves may be very hazardous. Many bivalve taxa formerly thought to have gone extinct in Karnian time have now been documented from Norian strata in this arc terrane. These range extensions, coupled with the high bivalve species richness of the Hells Canyon site, suggest that the Karnian mass extinction in several literature-based compilations may be an artifact of incomplete sampling. Even for the Norian, present compilations of molluscan extinction may have an unacceptably large artifactual component.

Thirty-five bivalve taxa from the Hells Canyon locality are discussed. Of these, seven are new: the mytilid Mysidiella cordillerana n. sp., the limacean Antiquilima vallieri n. sp., the true oyster Liostrea newelli n. sp., the pectinacean Crenamussium concentricum n. gen. and sp., the unioid Cardinioides josephus n. sp., the trigoniacean Erugonia canyonensis n. gen. and sp., and the carditacean Palaeocardita silberlingi n. sp.

New Mexico contains a significant record of trace fossil assemblages, in terms of both abundance and ichnodiversity, from Lower Permian nonmarine depositional settings. Most notable amongst these are the trace fossil assemblages in the Robledo Mountains Formation of the Robledo Mountains in Doña Ana County, southern New Mexico, as recognized by the recent proposal to designate this area as a national monument. These trace fossil assemblages formed on a tidal flat under largely non-marine conditions (Mack and James, 1986; Hunt et al., 1993; Lucas et al., 1995a, 1998) and are dominated by the trackways of tetrapods and arthropods, yielding important information on the paleoecology, diversity and behavior of late Paleozoic arthropods (Braddy and Briggs, 2002; Minter and Braddy, 2006a), as well as evidence of specialized foraging strategies (Minter et al., 2006). Additional Lower Permian trace fossil assemblages occur at a number of localities in New Mexico and represent a variety of nonmarine depositional settings.

A new species of toxodontid notoungulate, Xotodon maimarensis n. sp., is described from the Maimará Formation (late Miocene–early Pliocene), Jujuy Province, northwestern Argentina. This is the first record of a toxodontid from the Eastern Cordillera. The specimen is housed at the Museo de Geología, Mineralogía y Paleontología, Instituto de Geología y Minería de la Universidad Nacional de Jujuy. It consists of an incomplete mandible preserving the right mandibular ramus with part of the dental series, partially preserved symphysis with all the incisors, and a small portion of the left ramus without teeth. The following characters distinguish it as a new taxon: symphysis long and narrow with slight divergence of its lateral borders; strong procumbence of lower incisors and deeply implanted i3; chin angle lower than in X. major and X. cristatus and bulging labial keel limiting strong lateral concavities. Comparative analysis in the context of the recently revised Neogene Toxodontidae indicates that the Maimará specimen shares mandibular features and dental characters with Xotodon and Mixotoxodon, differing from the latter by the more upraised symphysis. The phylogenetic position of Xotodon maimarensis n. sp. supports the taxonomic interpretation of the studied specimen as a new species of Xotodon. This new Toxodontidae increases the knowledge of the diversity and radiation of this group of notoungulates in northwest Argentina.

Abundant “hydrozoans” are important frame-building and accessory organisms in Middle and Upper Permian reefs of southern China, particularly in western Hubei, eastern Sichuan, eastern Yunnan, and northwestern Guangxi. The new genera Radiotrabeculopora, Lichuanopora, and Pseudopalaeoaplysina are described, as are the new species Disjectopora beipeiensis, D. irregulara, Radiotrabeculopora xiangoboensis, R. maokoui, R. elegans, R. reticulata, R. astrorhiza, Balatonia robusta, Lichuanopora bancaoensis, L.(?) regulara, Pseudopalaeoaplysina sinensis, and P. major. The assemblage represents one of the most diverse upper Paleozoic “hydrozoan” assemblages known.

A two meter stratigraphic interval within the Chowan River Formation of North Carolina contains a thicket of branching coral, Septastrea crassa (Holmes), associated with a diverse macrofaunal assemblage. The thicket modified a local shelf habitat by providing protection and feeding opportunities for certain vagrant epifaunal species. Faunal adjustments wrought by the thicket and thicket growth represent autogenic succession. Coral growth rates and preservation suggest a time span of about 100–300 years for thicket development.

Bottom shoaling, associated with a eustatic regression, caused movement of a depth controlled environmental gradient during thicket growth. As the habitat changed, a plane bottom macrofaunal assemblage replaced the thicket assemblage by reordering abundances of intergradational species and introducing a few new species. Faunal density, diversity, trophic structure, and modes of life of component species were altered during replacement.

Observed temporal community changes are best explained as gradual faunal adjustments along a shelf stress gradient. Short term allogenic or autogenic events may temporarily perturb gradual changes. Changes associated with thicket development are interpreted as a brief autogenic perturbation of long term community replacement.

The terrestrial tortoise clade Chelonoidis is endemic to the South American continent and nearby islands. Three continental species are currently recognized that inhabit three distinct habitats. The red-footed tortoise (C. carbonaria) and yellow-footed tortoise (C. denticulata) are often sympatric tropical to semi-tropical taxa, but the former taxon generally prefers open and wet savannahs, whereas the latter distinctly prefers permanent and wet forest cover. In contrast, the Chaco Tortoise, C. chilensis, is arid-adapted and lives along the eastern dry slopes of the southern Andes (Ernst and Barbour, 1989). The diverse group of generally dry-adapted tortoises from the Galapagos Islands is currently thought to be the gigantic sisters of C. chilensis (Caccone et al., 1999).

A new species of the fern Phlebopteris, P. tracyi n. sp., is described from the Jurassic Coon Hollow Formation in the Wallowa terrane in the Snake River Canyon, Oregon and Idaho. The leaf is as large or larger than all specimens of previously described species of Phlebopteris. The pinnae of the new species are divided into many widely spaced, narrow, elongate pinnules that have obtusely pointed apices. Each pinnule contains a strong midrib from which lateral veins arise at a high angle and give off anastomosing branch veins. The fertile pinnae bear circular superficial sori arranged in a single row on each side of midrib. The new Phlebopteris occurs beneath a horizon containing marine fossils of Middle Jurassic age. The presence of P. tracyi in the Coon Hollow Formation indicates that it was deposited under a humid, warm to hot climate.

Some Silurian-Devonian Argentinian trilobites characterized by infaunal behavior during molting are considered. After a taxonomic reappraisal, a species previously referred to a lineage of the phacopid Paciphacops is proposed as Echidnops taphomimus new species, from the Lower Devonian (probably late Lochkovian) of the Talacasto Formation, Argentine Precordillera. The visual surface of E. taphomimus indicates that a irregular pattern of lens arrangement, typical of early phacopids such as the Ordovician Ormathops, can also be recognized in more derived Devonian relatives, providing new insights on some evolutionary aspects of visual development. Echidnops is recognized in Australia and Argentina, recording an unusual distribution pattern in trilobites from the Lower Devonian of southern South America, otherwise mostly linked to faunas of related Gondwanan, austral circum-polar Devonian basins of the Malvinokaffric Realm. In accordance with proposed increasing predation pressure in the context of the Mid Paleozoic Marine Revolution, evidence indicates that the infaunal molting behavior, as defensive strategy, arose in several trilobite groups during Silurian-Devonian times, rather than in a single endemic lineage of Paciphacops species.