Coccolithus crassus was described by Bramlette and Sullivan (1961) from the Lodo Formation of California. This species has a short stratigraphic range within the lower Eocene and its first occurrence is a marker for the CP10/CP11 zonal boundary in the widely used nannofossil zonation of Okada and Bukry (1980). Most nannofossil workers, however, do not report this index fossil, and the CP10/CP11 zonal boundary is often not determined. This is in contrast to the work of D. Bukry, who used the first occurrence of C. crassus for the CP10/CP11 boundary in virtually all lower Eocene DSDP cores that he examined (Figure 1). Apparently, there is considerable confusion about C. crassus. For instance, Romein (1979) considered C. crassus a junior synonym of Coccolithus eopelagicus (Bramlette and Riedel) Bramlette and Sullivan; Steinmetz and Stradner (1984, p. 741, Pl. 42, figs. 1 and 2) figured a specimen of Ericsonia subpertusa Hay and Mohler from Zone CP7 (upper Paleocene) as C. crassus; Perch-Nielsen (1985, p. 433, figs. 3.46 and 3.47, p. 504, figs. 58.12 and 58.13) mistook Toweius callosus Perch-Nielsen as C. crassus, as did Varol (1989, p. 302, Pl. 4, figs. 37 and 38). The main problem that prevents most workers from using this index fossil is that the species concept is largely unclear. It appears to be difficult to distinguish C. crassus from C. pelagicus or T. callosus based on the light micrographs of Bramlette and Sullivan (1961, Pl. 1, figs. 4a and 4c), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) photographs of this species have never been published except one specimen of the species was illustrated in Matter et al. (1974, p. 914, Pl. 4, fig. 8) under the name Ericsonia ovalis Black.

Fragmentary bones and teeth of three Late Cretaceous dinosaur taxa occur along both sides of the Georgia-Alabama border, in the extreme southeastern Coastal Plain Province. The localities lie in the middle and upper Blufftown Formation, in nearshore marine deposits. Exogyra ssp. and calcareous nannofossils give a late Santonian through mid-Campanian age range. Taxa determined are: Hadrosauridae, genus and species indeterminate; Ornithomimidae, genus and species indeterminate; and Albertosaurus? sp.

Distortion of the paleontologic literature in most of the 450 papers bearing V. J. Gupta as author or co-author during the past 30 years has been documented by Agarwal and Singh (1981), Talent (1989a, 1989b, 1989c, 1990a, 1990b, 1990c, in press), Talent et al. (1988, 1989, 1990, 1991), Ahluwalia (1989), Bassi (1989, 1990), Brock et al. (1991), and Radhakrishna (1991). Replies to the charges of fabrication and distortion by Gupta (1989, 1990a, 1990b) were futile attempts to distract the reader, rather than to provide information to refute the charges.

Among the equid species named from the Cypress Hills Formation (Eocene to Miocene) of Saskatchewan, Mesohippus westoni and M. propinquus are documented from the early Chadronian Calf Creek local fauna, and M. westoni is also known from the earlier Southfork local fauna and from other Chadronian and Orellan deposits of western North America. Teeth possibly referable to Miohippus assiniboiensis are found in association with Whitneyan or early Arikareean assemblages. Miohippus grandis, not M. assiniboiensis, is the correct reference for larger Chadronian equids from Calf Creek and other local faunas. Archaeohippus stenolophus (new combination) is preserved in latest Arikareean or early Hemingfordian beds of the Cypress Hills, and occurs in faunal assemblages that show strong resemblances to the Runningwater assemblage of Nebraska.

In situ colonies of Bulmanicrusta? sp. encrusting the surface of a hardground from the Upper Ordovician Bull Fork Formation provide the first glimpse of the full colony form, habitat, and faunal associates of a crustoid graptolite. Bulmanicrusta? sp. exhibits a runner-type colony form suited to rapid expansion over hard substrates, indicating it was an opportunistic member of the hardground community. This community also included two bryozoans (“Proboscina” and Amplexopora), Cornulites, and crinoids. The Bulmanicrusta? sp. specimens contain numerous graptoblasts (small, thick-walled vesicles) in organic connection with the colony. These objects are located at branch termini and confirm that graptoblasts were not pathological features, but probably were resting cysts produced by the crustoid colony as a normal part of its life cycle. Thus, the presence of graptoblasts supports the interpretation that the Caesar Creek crustoid was adapted to ephemeral or disturbance-prone environments.

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.

The association of sponges and encrusting, attached, or burrowing organisms has been commented upon relatively little. Finks (1960) and Gundrum (1979), for example, noted the association of articulate brachiopods, barnacle borings, bryozoans, gastropods, and rugose and tabulate corals with various upper Paleozoic sponges and, more specific to this paper, Morris and Whittington (1985) illustrated the inarticulate brachiopod Micromitra attached to the Cambrian sponge Pirania. During the summer of 1991, two scree-derived specimens of sponge-inarticulate brachiopod associations on two separate pieces of shale were collected from Abbott River (Figure 1), Cornwallis Island, Arctic Canada (75°14′N, 95°45′W).

The midgut of a new specimen of Typhloesus wellsi (Melton and Scott) from the Bear Gulch Member (Namurian, Montana) contains a complete, well-preserved apparatus of Kladognathus Rexroad. The apparatus comprises 2 Pa, 2 Pb, 1 Sa, 4 Sb, 4 Sc, and 2 M elements. Kladognathus and Oulodus angulatus (Hinde) are the only members of the Prioniodinida of which complete, well-preserved bedding plane assemblages are known. The arrangement of elements in these assemblages suggests that the prioniodinid Bauplan was similar to that of ozarkodinids.

Webster (1991) is to be congratulated for clarifying the validity of the various contributions made to the literature of fossil echinoderms by V. J. Gupta. However, in correcting the paleogeographic database, an error has crept in which itself needs amending.

Mackenzie Gordon, Jr., 78 (Figure 1), was a geologist and paleontologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for more than 40 years. Mac, as he was affectionately known, died of cardiac arrest at his home on 30 January 1992 after a very brief illness. He is survived by his wife Barbara Walker Gordon of Washington, D.C.

A unique monospecific bonebed of rhinophrynid anurans was recently discovered in the Wagon Bed Formation (Middle Eocene, Uintan), Hot Springs County, Wyoming. The bonebed occurs on a single bedding plane within a thin sandstone layer. This unit is part of a nearshore facies of a calcium carbonate-rich lake in which the water was warm, shallow, and quiet at the site of the mortality layer.

A representative area of this bonebed, approximately 450 square centimeters in size, provides the basis for this taphonomic and paleoecologic study. This area contains approximately 600 bones and at least 19 individuals are represented. Skeletons are nearly completely disarticulated but somewhat associated, bone modification features are absent, a slight preferred orientation of the linear bones is present, and many of the lighter, less dense skeletal elements are underrepresented. Scavengers probably contributed to disarticulation of the skeletons. Bone depletion occurred by a combination of the action of scavengers, weak currents, and the sloughing off of body parts as the carcasses floated. The assemblage was not subjected to extensive winnowing by currents.

All of the specimens within this assemblage represent young adults. Because the frogs are all of the same ontogenetic age and the deposit shows no signs of time averaging, the assemblage is interpreted as the result of catastrophic death, possibly by disease, of one age class. Either a population of frogs inhabited the site where the mortality layer formed or the carcasses floated into it.

Preservation of pristine pigmentation in fossil shells is a rare phenomenon (Teichert, 1964) and fossilization accompanied by recrystallization often renders the primary color bands indiscernible (Shrock and Twenhofel, 1953). Nevertheless, there are reports on color markings in fossil shells ranging from the Middle Cambrian to Holocene (Hoare, 1978; Mapes and Hoare, 1987; Kobluk and Mapes, 1989).

Ceratodus diutinus, a new species of ceratodont lungfish similar to but not identical with Ceratodus kaupi Agassiz, 1838–1844, is described from the Lower Cretaceous Griman Creek Formation at Grawan and Lightning Ridge in northern New South Wales, Australia, and the Toolebuc Formation at Canary Station near Boulia in western Queensland. The species also occurred in one Late Oligocene–Middle Miocene deposit at North Prospect, Lake Pinpa, South Australia (Namba Formation). This is the first record from Australia of a species of Ceratodus similar to the Triassic ceratodonts of Europe. The Australian species lasted much longer than the related European species, C. kaupi, which is restricted to Triassic deposits.

A nearly complete and well-preserved skeleton of the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) and a cranial fragment of a short-faced bear (Arctodus simus) were recovered from fossil lake deposits at 2,740 m, near the crest of the Wasatch Plateau, central Utah. The mammoth bones are reliably dated to between 11,500 and 9,500 yr B.P. and may be associated with a late Paleoindian occupation at the site. The mammoth and bear are part of a high elevation Huntington Canyon megafauna including mastodon (Mammut americanum), horse (Equus sp.), and bison (Bison sp.). The mammoth was an old bull with considerable pathology in the vertebral column, ribs, and legs. Pollen, plant macrofossils, insects, and dung associated with the mammoth suggest this megafauna occupied an essentially modern environmental setting after deglaciation of the Wasatch plateau.

A new specimen of the Cretaceous trionychoid turtle Basilemys praeclara Hay, from the Frenchman Formation (Upper Maastrichtian) of Saskatchewan, confirms the validity of the species, previously known only from the type specimen. Basilemys praeclara is considered the sister taxon of Basilemys sinuosa, and the restriction of this clade to the late Maastrichtian reinforces the distinctiveness of the Lancian chelonian fauna from the older Judithian chelonian fauna. Basilemys, Nanhsiungchelys, and Zangerlia comprise the family Nanhsiungchelyidae, with Basilemys and Nanhsiungchelys being sister taxa within the family.

New lower dental material of the fossil hyracoid mammal, Seggeurius amourensis Crochet, 1986, from Eocene deposits of the Southern Atlas in Algeria, has prompted a reevaluation of the genus. The dentition as a whole is first described in detail, thus providing a more precise characterization of the genus than has hitherto been available. Peculiarities, particularly in upper molar morphology, are sufficient to uphold a generic distinction. However, based largely on lower molar morphology Seggeurius amourensis is transferred from the subfamily Geniohyinae to Saghatheriinae. In the upper molars, absence of a postmetacrista and the presence of a preprotocrista continuous with the parastyle are interpreted as primitive features in hyracoids. In the lower molars, extreme reduction of the paracristid and the presence of a mesoconid are also considered primitive for hyracoids. These features together with small size, bunodonty, low crown height, and very simple premolar morphology indicate that Seggeurius amourensis is the most primitive hyrax yet recovered.

During recent years, there has been an increase in the number of papers that include taxonomical descriptions of brachiopods belonging to the order Athyridida. In these papers, the authors do not use the same spelling while referring to suprageneric taxa (e.g., Dagys, 1974; Grunt, 1989; Cooper and Dutro, 1982; Brunton, 1984; Modzalevskaya, 1985; Wang Yu and Rong Jia-yu, 1986; Carter, 1988; Alvarez, 1990) and commonly names or adjectives such as 〈athyroids〉, 〈athyridoids〉, 〈athyridids〉, 〈athyrids〉, 〈athyridaceans〉, 〈athyrididaceans〉 etc. vary considerably.

The Paleontological Society has instituted a series of special Golden Trilobite Awards to recognize excellence in paleontological publishing, including writing, editing, and book design. There are three regular categories of awards: popular or general public book, juvenile or young person's book, and systematic paleontologic monograph.

In 1892 the Swedish paleontologist Johan Christian Moberg described and illustrated what he interpreted as a fossil insect (Hemiptera) from beds of early Ordovician age in the southernmost limestone quarry at Killeröd, Smedstorp Parish in Skåne [Scania], southern Sweden. In a later paper in the same year (Moberg, 1892b), he also made a further passing reference to the presence of the same fossil when describing the accompanying graptolite fauna from Killeröd. One of his main reasons for recording this find was his conclusion (Moberg, 1892a, p. 122) that “it is evidently of great interest with full certainty to be able to prove the presence of airbreathing (terrestrial) animals as far back in time as that during which the oldest strata of the lower Silurian [i.e., Ordovician] were formed” [translation from Swedish].