‘Captorhinikos’ chozaensis Olson, 1954 is a captorhinid eureptile with multiple tooth rows from the lower Permian (Cisuralian: Kungurian) Clear Fork Group of north-central Texas and the Hennessey Formation of Oklahoma. It has five maxillary and four dentary tooth rows. We re-examined the available specimens referred to ‘Captorhinikos’ chozaensis to elucidate aspects of its skeletal structure and assess its phylogenetic relationships. Our parsimony analysis confirmed previous suggestions that this taxon is not referable to the same taxon as Captorhinikos valensis Olson, 1954 (type species of the genus) and ‘Captorhinikos’ parvus Olson, 1970 and thus is placed in its own new genus, Sumidadectes. It also recovered Sumidadectes chozaensis n. comb. as the earliest-diverging moradisaurine captorhinid.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/0f89869a-1889-4d90-b721-a89ba5f40c4b

This work presents a detailed taxonomic study on organic-walled microfossils from the Ediacaran Sete Lagoas Formation (Bambuí Group) at the Barreiro section in the Januária area of the São Francisco basin, Brazil. Seven species are described, including Siphonophycus robustum (Schopf, 1968), Ghoshia januarensis new species, Leiosphaeridia crassa (Naumova, 1949), Leiosphaeridia jacutica (Timofeev, 1966), Leiosphaeridia minutissima (Naumova, 1949), Leiosphaeridia tenuissima Eisenack, 1958, and Germinosphaera bispinosa Mikhailova, 1986. These taxa are recovered for the first time in the Sete Lagoas Formation. They occur abundantly in the lower portion of the studied section, but only Ghoshia januarensis is present in the upper part of the studied section, probably due to environmental or taphonomic changes. Leiosphaeridia species, particularly Leiosphaeridia minutissima, dominate the organic-walled microfossil assemblage. Although most taxa described here have long stratigraphic ranges, they are consistent with a terminal Ediacaran age as inferred from detrital zircon data and tubular fossils (e.g., Cloudina and Corumbella) from the Sete Lagoas Formation.

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Encompassing global cooling, the spread of grasslands, and biogeographic interchanges, the Hemphillian North American Land Mammal Age is an important interval for understanding the factors driving ecological and evolutionary change through time. McKay Reservoir near Pendleton, Oregon is a natural laboratory for analyses of these factors. It is remarkable for its small vertebrate fauna including rodents, bats, turtles, and lagomorphs, but also for its larger mammal fossils like camelids, rhinocerotids, canids, and felids. Despite the importance of the site, few revisions to its faunal list have been published since its original description. We expand on this description by identifying taxa not previously known from McKay Reservoir based on specimens collected during fieldwork and through reidentification of previously collected fossils. Newly identified taxa include the borophagine canid Borophagus secundus (Matthew and Cook, 1909), the camelids Megatylopus Matthew and Cook, 1909 and Pleiolama Webb and Meachen, 2004, a dromomerycid, and the equids Cormohipparion Skinner and MacFadden, 1977 and Pseudhipparion Ameghino, 1904. Specimens previously assigned to Neohipparion Gidley, 1903 and Hipparion de Christol, 1832 lack the features necessary to diagnose these genera, which are therefore removed from the site's faunal list. The presence of Borophagus secundus, Cormohipparion, and Pseudhipparion is especially important, because each occurrence represents a major geographic range extension. This refined understanding of the fauna lays the foundation for future studies of taphonomy, taxonomy, functional morphology, and paleoecology—potentially at the population, community, or ecosystem levels—at this paleobiologically significant Miocene locality.

Central Europe is an area of high diversity for the Talpidae (Eulipotyphla, Mammalia) during the Late Miocene. The assemblages from Slovakia (Borský Svätý Jur, Krásno, Pezinok, Šalgovce, Studienka, Triblavina) are no exception with their abundant material representing eleven species. The uropsiline Desmanella is represented by D. rietscheli and D. dubia. Desmanini fossils are attributed to Archaeodesmana vinea, Archaeodesmana dissona new species, Gerhardstorchia biradicata, and Gerhardstorchia sp. The scalopines Proscapanus minor and P. austriacus are well recorded in the Vallesian localities and support the emergence of P. austriacus before the MN9/10 transition. Talpini and Urotrichini are especially rare and only represented by Talpa cf. T. minuta and Urotrichini gen. sp. indet. Finally, we identified the youngest occurrence of Desmanodon in Europe, D. cf. D. fluegeli, at the MN9 locality of Borský Svätý Jur. The high diversity in the Late Miocene Central European is partly explained by the co-occurrence of the competing Scalopini and Talpini during the Vallesian, indicating high resource environments. The decline of these tribes, followed by the success of the desmans during the Turolian, appears as a consequence of regional environmental changes.

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The Weng'an Biota from the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation in Guizhou Province, southwestern China, is known for its three-dimensionally phosphatized acritarchs, multicellular algae, and embryo-like animal fossils. Among these diverse microfossils, acanthomorphic acritarchs have played a significant role in the biostratigraphic subdivision and correlation of the lower-middle Ediacaran System. However, most previous studies on the biostratigraphy of the Doushantuo Formation in the Weng'an area have focused on large acanthomorphic acritarchs (LAAs, vesicle diameter >200 μm), whereas the smaller acanthomorphic acritarchs (SAAs, vesicle diameter <100 μm) from the Weng'an Biota have been largely overlooked. In this study, we examined >500 thin sections and discovered a large number of well-preserved, small (<100 μm) and medium-sized acanthomorphic acritarchs (MAAs, vesicle diameter ranging 100–200 μm). In total, we have identified SAAs in four genera and six species (Tanarium conoideum Kolosova, 1991, emend. Moczydłowska et al., 1993; Tanarium elegans Liu et al., 2014; Mengeosphaera membranifera Shang, Liu, and Moczydłowska, 2019; Mengeosphaera minima Liu et al., 2014; Estrella recta Liu and Moczydłowska, 2019; Variomargosphaeridium gracile Xiao et al., 2014), as well as two types of MAAs (Tanarium tuberosum Moczydłowska, Vidal, and Rudavskaya, 1993, emend. Moczydłowska, 2015; Weissiella cf. W. grandistella Vorob'eva, Sergeev, and Knoll, 2009, emend. Liu and Moczydłowska, 2019). This updated acritarch assemblage of the Weng'an Biota is valuable for correlating the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation between the Weng'an and Yangtze Gorges areas. It also serves as a tool to test the proposed acritarch biozones in Ediacaran formations of South China and other localities, including Australia, Siberia, and the East European Platform.

The fossil genus Heterocladus LoDuca, Kluessendorf, and Mikulic, 2003 was established based on specimens from the Silurian (Llandovery) of southeastern Wisconsin, USA (LoDuca et al., 2003). This genus is monotypic and contains only the type species Heterocladus waukeshaensis LoDuca, Kluessendorf, and Mikulic, 2003, regarded as a noncalcified dasycladalean alga (LoDuca et al., 2003). Heterocladus waukeshaensis shows a narrow, undivided main axis and two types of laterals. Hair-like, branched laterals are arranged in whorls at lower part of the main axis, whereas clavate, undivided laterals appear at the upper part (LoDuca et al., 2003). The generic name is derived from the Greek hetero and klados, meaning ‘different’ and ‘branches,’ respectively (LoDuca et al., 2003).

Paraconularia planicostata (Dawson, 1868) is one of two species in this genus (Sinclair, 1940) of conulariid cnidarian currently known from Mississippian strata in the Maritimes Basin in Atlantic Canada (Babcock and Feldmann, 1986). A salient characteristic of the species is the presence of a low and narrow internal carina at or near the longitudinal midline of each of the four faces of the gently tapered periderm (Van Iten et al., 2020). Paraconularia planicostata occurs in marine carbonates in the Upper Mississippian lower Windsor and lower Codroy groups in Nova Scotia and western Newfoundland, respectively (e.g., Bell, 1929; Stacy, 1953; Dix and James, 1988; Boehner et al., 1989; Boehner and Prime, 1993; Lavoie and Sami, 1998; Jutras et al., 2006; Ryan and Giles, 2017; Van Iten et al., 2020). The species is exceptionally abundant, with richly fossiliferous biohermal limestones containing up to approximately 20 specimens per 1000 cm3 of host rock (Van Iten, unpublished observations)—a volumetric density matched by few other conulariid-bearing rock units.

We published a series of papers regarding the oldest turritellids, naticids, their paleoecological interaction, and gastropod biozonation, which are of Oxfordian in age, from the Jhura pond section, Kutch, western India. Recently, an Oxfordian age was challenged by Fürsich et al. (2023) and they argued for a Cenozoic age. The authors reproduced a local geological map based on regional data where the Jhura pond section sediments were overlying the Bhuj Formation. In the original regional data, there was no Bhuj Formation and the introduction of the Bhuj Formation served to show that Jhura pond section sediments were “allochthonous”. Other lines of argument against our conclusions (e.g., identification of associated bivalve fauna, foraminiferal assemblage, and geological context) were brought forward. There were additional inconsistencies, such as the reworking of Oxfordian fossils, in their comment/opinion pieces. The only hard evidence was the report of a microfaunal assemblage, but the taxa were identified at the generic level and most of the genera appear in the Jurassic or even earlier.

Here we provide detailed and concrete evidence explaining features at the Jhura pond section, such as the subvertical nature of the beds, the ooid-bearing lithologies, the presence of various Oxfordian fossils, the difference in turritellids, naticid assemblages, and differences in the diversity curves between the present beds and the lower Miocene Chhasra Formation of Kutch. Detailed paleoecological analyses (both gastropods and bivalves) speak for two paleocommunities. We, therefore, reiterate that the present Jhura pond section sediments are Oxfordian in age and validate all the interpretations and conclusions that we have made in our previous papers.

In their detailed comments, Das et al. (2023) try to discount our arguments that the strata cropping out at the so-called Jhura pond locality are not Late Jurassic in age but Miocene. We wrote this paper (Fürsich et al., 2023) because of the far-reaching conclusions that have been drawn from the molluscan fauna at that locality, in particular with respect to the evolution of turritellid gastropods and the evolution of drilling predation by naticid gastropods. We still maintain that the beds containing abundant turritellids are not Jurassic but Neogene, most probably Miocene, in age. In no way do we contest the various analyses on the material collected from the outcrop by the authors, but just the erroneous age assignment of the strata. In order to keep this reply short, we support our point by referring to just to two aspects: the position of the outcrop and the composition of the fauna. Rather than refuting each of the other arguments of Das et al. (2023), we think that a joint visit to the locality would be more productive for arriving at a consensus on the origin and age of the fauna of the Jhura pond locality.