Llanocystis wilbernsensis n. gen. n. sp. (Eocrinoidea, Echinodermata) is described based on three specimens from the Furongian Point Peak Shale Member of the Wilberns Formation in central Texas. It displays a unique morphology including a very long stem constructed with holomeric columnals, few feeding appendages, and a polyplated theca. The specimens occur in an intraformational conglomerate deposited in a proximal carbonate platform environment and represent an example of the poorly documented “pelmatozoan” radiation that occurred in proximal facies by the end of the Cambrian.

Genus Neosinocythere is described from the upper Miocene Itahana Formation in Central Japan, documenting the first record from Japan. The Neosinocythere species were discovered in gravity-flow sediments that were deposited below a depth of 84.9 m with a paleo-summer bottom temperature of 23.7°C and a paleo-winter bottom temperature of 14.1°C, based on a modern analog technique using the ostracode assemblage. Paleobiogeographical and paleoenvironmental analyses indicate that Neosinocythere appeared around the southeastern coast of the Eurasian continent, extended distribution in the northern coast of the Eurasian continent before migrating southward along the coast of the Eurasian continent as global temperatures decreased. The high-diversity area shifted from high latitudes to low latitudes.

Aerliceaster nexosus n. gen. n. sp. (Echinodermata), one of the oldest of known asteroids, is based on six specimens from the Floian (Early Ordovician) Garden City Formation of Idaho, and Kolataster perplexus n. gen. n. sp. is based on two specimens from the Sandian (Late Ordovician) Mifflin Formation of Illinois. Although the asterozoan skeleton is subdivided into few ossicular categories, evolutionary derivations of all the categories are not fully established, and therefore published evaluations differ. Beginning with phylogenetic work placing asteroid ancestry within the Somasteroidea together with the new taxa described herein, aspects of early asteroid morphology are evaluated and ambiguities in need of further study identified. Uncertainties are considered to be founded in rapid early asterozoan diversification and the scanty fossil record.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/b43d07cc-c8fb-4a84-bc6f-40aa6e0daea2

Strata of the Solvik Formation in the central Oslo region (upper Hirnantian to upper Aeronian) are rich in atrypides that elucidate the evolution of this group. A few athyridide brachiopods are also present. Eleven taxa of smooth spire-bearers are described taxonomically using fossils and peels. Among these occur one new genus, Eisaella, and five new species: Eisaella uniplicata, Thulatrypa huangi, T. vikenensis, ?Becscia pentagona, and Shelvothyris bivittata. Atrypides make up 30% (24 genera) of the total brachiopod genera in the Solvik Formation, more than one third of the known global atrypide fauna during that interval. Most are members of the family Lissatrypidae, illustrating the evolution of this group from upper Hirnantian and lower Silurian strata. These show close affinity to each other attesting to ongoing radiation. The new genus Eisaella is a likely ancestor of Lissatrypa, while Meifodia displays a gradual evolution through the formation. Atrypides were most diverse at the base and top of the Solvik Formation due to heterogony in environments and water depth, but were less diverse in the comparatively constant environmental setting of the late Rhuddanian time. The basal assemblages with few atrypides from shallow facies may be compared to the shallow Cathay Fauna of China. Most of the abundant Norwegian atrypide fauna is found in deeper water with few comparable faunas known globally. The Oslo region may have served as a center for the evolution and spread of atrypides immediately following the end-Ordovician glacial drawdown in sea level.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/508dba95-5501-403d-9a4d-deeb324847c9

Phragmolites lissoni new species is described from 11 specimens found in the Sandbian Calapuja Formation near Calapuja in Peru. The deposits are part of the Central Andean Basin. This is the hitherto only systematically described Ordovician gastropod from Peru. The species is from a brachiopod-dominated siliciclastic sequence and is associated with bryozoans. Most specimens are preserved as external molds, but latex casts yield excellent details of shell ornamentation and are used as a basis for evaluating this feature in the genus. The characteristic ornamentation of Phragmolites should be called corrugated lamellae, and the individual elements on these should be referred to as flutes. A descriptive terminology for these is suggested. The development and shape of the corrugated lamellae and flutes could be biomechanical process. A second component in lamellar formation is the alternation between regular incremental growth and formation of a lamella. Phragmolites is mainly found in shallow-water carbonate facies from tropical latitudes in the Sandbian and a mid-latitude presence in Peru is unexpected. Brachiopods from the same section in Calapuja show affinities with faunas of the Mediterranean margin of Gondwana but also weak links with Avalonia. Phragmolites is found abundantly in deeper-water facies in Laurentia, and a broad tolerance to facies and temperature and possible planktotrophy might have allowed a wide geographical dispersal of the genus. The scant record of Ordovician gastropods in the Central Andean Basin precludes comparison with the disparate record of the Ordovician gastropod taxa from the Precordillera, which do not include Phragmolites.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/References/fbd7a43e-a610-42fd-a31d-b1a16fa69c9b

A new species of drywood termite (Isoptera: Kalotermitidae) is described from a nearly complete alate specimen preserved in early Miocene Ethiopian amber. Glyptotermes abyssinicus new species is distinguished by its U-shaped head with 12-segmented antennae, the ocelli separated from the eye margin, the right mandible with an obtuse angle between the apical and first marginal teeth, the left mandible with an obtuse angle between the apical and first + second marginal teeth, and the wing venation. This is the first termite reported from Ethiopian amber, and the fourth Miocene species of the extant genus Glyptotermes Froggatt, 1897, together with species previously described from diatomites of China and amber from the Dominican Republic. As the oldest report of the genus known from Africa, G. abyssinicus n. sp. constitutes an interesting new record for the biogeographical history of the kalotermitid lineage.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/7670b045-fb31-4809-8116-4d14c4dd275b

The west coast of North America record of the shallow-marine stromboid gastropod genus Rimella Agassiz, 1841 is restudied for the first time in 90 years. This genus comprises a small group of Paleogene gastropods characterized by having an ornamented fusiform shell, a posterior canal ascending the spire, and simple (non-flared) outer lip. Rimella, whose familial ranking has been inconsistent, is placed here in family Rostellariidae Gabb, 1868, subfamily Rimellinae Stewart, 1927. Ectinochilus Cossmann, 1889; Macilentos Clark and Palmer, 1923; Vaderos Clark and Palmer, 1923; and Cowlitzia Clark and Palmer, 1923 are recognized here as junior synonyms of Rimella. Four species are recognized from the west coast of North America: early to middle Eocene Rimella macilenta White, 1889; early Eocene Rimella oregonensis Turner, 1938; middle to late Eocene Rimella supraplicata (Gabb, 1864) new combination, of which Rostellaria canalifer Gabb, 1864, Cowlitizia washingtonensis Clark and Palmer, 1923, and Cowlitzia problematica Hanna, 1927 are recognized here as junior synonyms; and late Eocene Rimella elongata Weaver, 1912.

Rimella was a warm-water gastropod whose earliest known record is of early Paleocene (Danian) age in Pakistan. Other than the west coast of North America, Rimella is found in Eocene strata in western Europe, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, southeastern United States, Panama, Peru, and, to a lesser degree, in Trinidad, Columbia, Java, and New Zealand. Global cooling near the end of the Eocene greatly diminished the genus. Its youngest known occurrences are of early Oligocene age in Germany, Italy, England, and Peru.

Members of the echinoid order Spatangoida, a highly diverse and abundant marine invertebrate clade, were important denizens of the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway (WIS), an epicontinental seaway that divided North America in two during an interval of greenhouse conditions between roughly 100 and 65 million years ago. A phylogenetic analysis of spatangoids was conducted using a character matrix of 32 characters from 21 species. Species that occur in the WIS were considered comprehensively, and species from other regions such as South America, Europe, and North Africa were also incorporated into the analysis. Phylogenetic patterns retrieved are largely congruent with preexisting family-level classifications; however, species within several genera, especially Hemiaster and Heteraster, need to be reassigned so that classification better reflects phylogeny. The genera Washitaster and Heteraster are closely related, as are Mecaster, Palhemiaster, and Proraster; Pliotoxaster, Macraster, and Hemiaster; and Micraster and Diplodetus. Biogeographic patterns were also considered using the phylogeny, and several episodes of vicariance and range expansion were identified. These were possibly related to some of the various major episodes of sea-level rise and fall during the Cretaceous. In particular, Valangian–mid-Aptian regressions may have caused vicariance within Heteraster and Washitaster while other early spatangoid vicariance may be related to regressions during the late Aptian–early Cenomanian. Further, vicariance caused by regressions during the mid-Cenomanian–Maastrichtian may have driven diversification within Micraster and Diplodetus. Last, transgressions during the late Aptian–early Cenomanian seem to have spurred prominent range expansions in Mecaster and Hemiaster.

Ordovician open marine Lagerstätten are relatively rare and widely dispersed, producing a patchy picture of the diversity and biogeography of nonmineralized marine organisms and challenging our understanding of the fate of Cambrian groups. Here, for the first time, we report soft-bodied fossils, including a well-preserved marrellomorph arthropod, fragmentary carapaces, and macroalgae, from the Late Ordovician (Katian) Upper Member of the Kirkfield Formation near Brechin, Ontario. The unmineralized elements and associated exceptionally preserved shelly biota were entombed rapidly in storm deposits that smothered the shallow, carbonate-dominated shelf. The marrellomorph, Tomlinsonus dimitrii n. gen. n. sp., is remarkable for its ornate, curving cephalic spines and pair of hypertrophied appendages, suggesting a slow-moving, benthic lifestyle. Reevaluation of marrellomorph phylogeny using new data favors an arachnomorph affinity, although internal relationships are robust to differing outgroup selection. Clades Marrellida and Acercostraca are recovered, but the monophyly of Marrellomorpha is uncertain. The new taxon is recovered as sister to the Devonian Mimetaster and, as the second-youngest known marrellid, bridges an important gap in the evolution of this clade. More generally, the Brechin biota represents a rare window into Ordovician open marine shelf environments in Laurentia, representing an important point of comparison with contemporaneous Lagerstätten from other paleocontinents, with great potential for further discoveries.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/884589d0-08f7-4398-ab42-1f5d459be9e9

The fossil record of the family Camerobiidae has been represented by only one species, Neophyllobius succineus Bolland and Magowski, 1990, described from Eocene Baltic amber. These prostigmatan mites are distinguishable by their distinctly long and slender stilt-like legs, and they are associated with aboveground vegetation where they hunt for other small invertebrates. This paper enhances the knowledge of fossil stilt-legged mites. Two new fossil species, N. electrus new species and N. glaesus new species, are described from samples of Baltic amber, and remarks on their morphology and taphonomy are provided. The discovery is complemented with a discussion on morphological singularities (the shape of the prodorsum, the location of setae h1 and h2 in living specimens, and lengths of genual setae), an anomaly of hypertrophied seta (found in the N. glaesus holotype), and some biogeographical issues.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/d1602384-ae4f-4f90-b4a1-6cdedd77c9e1

Protandrous sex change (sex change from male to female) is one of the diverse sexual expressions exhibited by bivalves, but its expression in the shell is quite rare. Previous studies on living and fossil astartids suggest a relationship between protandrous sex change and the formation of crenulations on the ventral shell margin at later ontogenetic stages. Here we report the formation of such crenulations in the Early Jurassic astartid Nicaniella rakoveci (Kuhn, 1935) from the Amaltheenton Formation at Buttenheim, Franconia. This is the earliest known record of protandrous hermaphroditism in fossil bivalves, predating previous reports by at least 13 Myr. A principal component analysis of linear size measurements and Fourier shape analysis of the shell outlines revealed that the outline of Nicaniella rakoveci specimens varies from subquadrate to subcircular, but this variation is independent of the presence or absence of crenulations and therefore not associated with sex. Crenulated specimens exhibit a lower height/inflation ratio than non-crenulated ones, suggesting that the protandrous females have more inflated valves than the males. The formation of crenulations was probably related to allocation of resources for reproduction. The most likely function of the crenulations was to increase the internal shell volume in the female stage to accommodate more eggs rather than being an adaptation against predation as often assumed for other bivalves. The formation of crenulations is part of the protandrous life history and probably is controlled by a genetic mechanism that is also responsible for sex change.

The outcrop at Whiterock Canyon Narrows, Nevada, is the stratotype for the Middle Ordovician Whiterockian Series in Laurentia. Contrasts in the distribution of trilobites and conodonts between two parallel sections at the stratotype demonstrate the presence of an unconformity separating Ibexian faunas (the historic trilobite Zone J, the more recent restricted “Pseudocybele nasuta” trilobite Zone, the Reutterodus andinus conodont Zone) from overlying Whiterockian faunas (Zone L, the Psephosthenaspis pseudobathyurus trilobite Zone, the Orthidiella brachiopod Zone, the Tripodus combsi conodont Zone). The unconformity represents the erosional loss of a minimum of 10 m of shale and bedded limestone within the upper Ninemile Formation. In comparison to more continuous section in the Ibex region, Utah, the equivalent to the thin Psephosthenaspis microspinosa trilobite Zone and, possibly, the uppermost interval of the underlying “P. nasuta” Zone are missing. Illaenus welchi new species is described from the Whiterockian faunas of the upper Ninemile and Antelope Valley formations.

A proposed new genus of scalpellomorph cirriped, Tetrinis n. gen., based on T. serenuportus n. sp., is known from three Kansas localities in the middle part of the Fairport Member of the Carlile Shale where it is epizoic on the bivalve Inoceramus cuvieri. The stalked cirriped Stramentum elegans coexisted with T. serenuportus and the bryozoan Proboscina sp. was epizoic on S. elegans but not on T. serenuportus. The genus is readily distinguished from all other scalpellomorph cirripeds in the character of the capitulum, which comprises 28 slightly overlapping plates arranged in four whorls. Tetrinis serenuportus displays a large rostrum and an upper latus that is situated low in the capitulum between the scutum and tergum, allowing the two latter plates to touch. All umbos are apical except for that of the scutum, which is subapical and closer to the apex than to the base. The new form apparently has a narrow stratigraphic range and has potential as a biostratigraphic marker.

As the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology prepares for the coming century, the staff of the Paleontological Institute and the boards of advisors have begun the development of PaleoBank, an electronic, relational database that will facilitate the capture of up-to-date, paleontological information. Moving the Treatise project into the electronic age will make the task of the authors less daunting and enable future volumes of the Treatise to be updated in a more timely manner.

We recently reported Cambrowania ovata Tang and Xiao in Tang et al., 2019, from the early Cambrian Hetang Formation in South China and interpreted it as a problematic animal fossil, possibly related to either sponges or bivalved arthropods (Tang et al., 2019). Slater and Budd (2019) contested our taxonomic identification and phylogenetic interpretation; instead, they claimed that Cambrowania ovata is a large acritarch referable to morphotaxon Leiosphaeridia Eisenack, 1958, and thus is not an animal. Here we refute their criticisms, clarify the differences between Cambrowania and Leiosphaeridia and other acritarchs, and reiterate why an animal affinity for Cambrowania cannot be ruled out.

Two fossil wing specimens from adult cockroaches (order Blattaria) were discovered during field investigations at the Cretaceous outcrop of the Cobb's Creek site (NE1/4, sec. 4, T109N, R30W; Brown County) near New Ulm, Minnesota. Prior to the present investigation, no adult fossil insect parts from Minnesota have been described from deposits as old as the Cretaceous. Lewis (1970) described immature caddisfly cases (Trichoptera) from the Cobb's Creek site.

A new enigmatic Lower Cambrian fossil, Spygoria zappania, is described From the Nevadella zone (Botoman) of Lander County, central Nevada. In gross morphology, Spygoria fossils consist of stacks of small (5–10 mm in diameter) irregular calcified cups that are preserved in vertical, concave-up life orientation. Stacks are linked laterally into large monospecific bioherms which flourished in a shallow turbulent marine environment.

The Spygoria organism is interpreted as a metazoan which presumably inhabited the uppermost cup in each stack and periodically secreted new cups as it grew upward. Absence of holdfast structures suggest that the organism was held in place by sticky mud until opportunistically cementing to adjacent individuals. The affinity of Spygoria remains problematical, though we suggest that its stacked structure somewhat resembles the cone-in-cone structure of Cloudina, which formed similar dense thickets in shallow turbulent carbonate environments during the terminal Proterozoic.

This paper describes the first silicified Upper Triassic (Early Norian) hypercalcified sponges known from the Alexander terrane, southeast Alaska. Sponges consist of five taxa from the Cornwallis Limestone of Keku Strait, southeast Alaska: Amblysiphonella Steinmann, Parauvanella Senowbari-Daryan and Di Stefano, Nevadathalamia cylindrica (Seilacher), N. minima n. sp., and Stellispongia (S. cf. subsphaerica Dieci, Antonacci, and Zardini). The hypercalcified sponges of the Alexander terrane as described in this paper provide paleogeographic linkage with other far-flung terranes of western North America, namely the Western Great Basin of Nevada, Stikinia of the Yukon, as well as the Antimonio terrane of northwestern Mexico. In addition, Parauvanella cf. ferdowensis is known from the Upper Triassic Nayband Formation, Iran. Finally Stellispongia cf. subsphaerica is known from the Upper Carnian Cassian Formation of the Dolomite Alps.

Sponges (particularly hypercalcified inozoans, sphinctozoans, chaetetids, and sponge-like organisms) are known worldwide from many Upper Triassic reef and nonreef sites. Although Upper Triassic deposits within the Cordilleran terranes and cratonal North America do not typically contain reeflike buildups, hypercalcifying sponge-like organisms were noted as occurring as part of the intricate paleoecological structure within a biostrome along the western shoreline of Gravina Island, southeast Alaska (southern Alexander terrane). This is in contrast to Keku Strait, southeast Alaska (central Alexander terrane), where hypercalcified sponges were identified from limestone beds within nonreef deposits.

Pulvinites lawrencei n. sp. is described from the upper Paleocene (Landenian Stage) Paspotansa Member of the Aquia Formation in Stafford County, Virginia. This is the first report of a member of the pteriacean family Pulvinitidae in the Tertiary on either side of the Atlantic, the only other post-Mesozoic records of Pulvinites being in the Paleocene of California and the present-day Pacific off southeast Australia. The stratigraphic setting and co-occurring molluscan assemblage of the new species indicate shallow-shelf, open-marine conditions with near normal salinities.

Shell structure has been studied in two species of the family Craniidae Menke, 1828, from the Upper Jurassic of East Ukraine and from the Lower Cretaceous of Crimea, South Ukraine. These species belong to the new genus Mesocrania—M. barskovi (Smirnova, 1972) and M. condylata new species. A layer of coarse regular rhomboidal crystallites was discovered between the primary layer of acicular crystallites and the secondary laminar layer. Branching punctae canals were observed in M. barskovi.