During recent stratigraphical and micropaleontological investigations of the Gulupu section in Tüna, Yadong, of the Eocene Zhepure Formation, numerous holoplanktonic mollusks (pteropods) were recovered. Four species, assignable to two genera of pteropods (including Limacina yadongensis new species) were systematically described and illustrated, and a gastropod-bivalve biofacies was identified. This is the first report of Eocene (Ypresian) pteropods in southern Tibet; the same stratum also yields many other neritic faunas. The data presented in this study suggest that a semi-closed restricted gulf in the Tüna area existed and the occurrence of pteropods in Tüna may indicate transport from more open, deep water by oceanic currents during early Eocene. Based on the analysis of paleogeographical distribution of pteropods, it indicates that a Tethys seaway existed during the early Eocene (Ypresian).

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Fossil capitate hydrozoans require exceptional conditions for preservation. Here we describe Bertratis ciurcae new genus, new species from the Silurian (Pridoli) of southern Ontario and upper New York State, where it occurs in association with a diverse assemblage of eurypterids. Only the float (pneumatophore) is well preserved, surviving as a thick carbonaceous compression. The new taxon is the largest fossil capitate reported, reaching a width of 17 cm, and the third Porpita-like example known from the Paleozoic. It was a rare pelagic component of the biota of the well-known Bertie Group Lagerstätten.

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Fossil egg capsules of chimaeroids (holocephalian fishes), although rare, have been known for more than 150 years (Bessels, 1869; Meunier, 1891a) and have been found in rocks as old as Upper Triassic (Gottfried and Fordyce, 2014). Egg capsules of extant chimaeroids are spindle shaped, with a smooth central body where the embryo develops, an elongate anterior beak through which the hatchling emerges, and an elongate posterior pedicle. The capsules are flanked by a lateral membrane or web on both sides, and the web is reinforced with branching or unbranching rib-like costae that extend laterally from the central body, beak, and pedicle. Specimens are typically about 10–30 cm long. Egg capsules of extant chimaeroids are made of collagen (Hamlett et al., 2005) and as fossils, chimaeroid egg capsules are typically preserved as external casts (Fischer et al., 2014).

One of the oldest fossil horseshoe crabs figured in the literature is Entomolithus lunatus Martin, 1809, a Carboniferous species included in his Petrificata Derbiensia. While the species has generally been included within the genus Belinurus Bronn, 1839, it was recently used as the type species of the new genus Parabelinurus Lamsdell, 2020. However, recent investigation as to the appropriate authority for Belinurus (see Lamsdell and Clapham, 2021) revealed that all the names in Petrificata Derbiensia were suppressed in Opinion 231 of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (1954) for being consistently nonbinomial under Article 11.4 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, 1999). Despite the validation of several species names for anthozoans, brachiopods, and cephalopods described in Petrificata Derbiensia in subsequent rulings (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, 1956a, b), Belinurus lunatus has not been the subject of any subsequent Commission ruling or opinion, and so its use in Petrificata Derbiensia remains suppressed. The Belinurus lunatus species name was used in several subsequent publications during the 1800s, none of which made the name available under ICZN article 11.5; Parkinson (1811) is also suppressed for being nonbinomial, while Woodward (1830), Buckland (1837), Bronn (1839), and Baily (1859) refer to the species only as a synonym of Belinurus trilobitoides (Buckland, 1837) through citation to the suppressed Pretificata Derbiensia. The first author to make Belinurus lunatus an available name was Baldwin (1905), who used the name in reference to a new figured specimen from Sparth Bottoms, Rochdale, UK, but again as an explicit junior synonym of Belinurus trilobitoides (Buckland, 1837). Therefore, it was not until Eller (1938) treated B. lunatus as a distinct species from B. trilobitoides that B. lunatus became an available name as per ICZN Article 11.6.1 under the authorship of Baldwin (1905) following ICZN Article 50.7.

Permian millipedes are rare, especially so considering the relative abundance of millipedes in Carboniferous rocks. We report an early Permian millipede fauna containing three new genera and species of millipedes (Oklahomasoma richardsspurense new genus new species, Karstiulus fortsillensis new genus new species, and Dolesea subtila new genus new species) found in fossil-producing pockets of the Fort Sill fissures exposed in the Dolese Quarry near Richards Spur, southwest Oklahoma, USA. These are the first new genera of invertebrates to be described from this site, one of the most prolific fossil-vertebrate sites in the world. We also comment on taxa with morphological similarities and note previously described occurrences of Permian millipedes as well as occurrences of fossil myriapods (millipedes and centipedes) in karst deposits (caves and fissure fills) in Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. In contrast with the forms found at Richards Spur, most of these previous accounts of millipedes found in caves and fissure fills are of Pleistocene forms that are closely allied to modern taxa. The taxa from Richards Spur bear some similarities to Pennsylvanian forms. Karst (cave and fissure) faunas should be ranked with concretion faunas, cannel coals, and amber faunas as a major source of fossil myriapods.

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The morphology of Zygospira, an early atrypide brachiopod, was analyzed using a multivariate approach. Principal component analysis and discriminant analysis clearly differentiated species as they are currently defined primarily based on differences in shell size and ornamentation but not in terms of overall shell shape. The older Zygospira modesta was able to persist into the late Katian (Richmondian) while smaller early species in other brachiopod lineages mostly went extinct. This may have been possible through niche partitioning because the smaller shells have been found attached to other filter feeders and no larger species have been found in these associations so far. This could represent a rare example of sympatric speciation preserved in the fossil record. In the future, detailed study of the spiralia and their associated structures may provide clues as to the ultimate evolutionary affinities of this group in relation to the other atrypide brachiopods evolving at this time.

Bryozoans are abundant and diverse in the upper part of the Chainman Shale (Mississippian; Osagean, Meramecian-Chesterian) and in the upper Chesterian part of the overlying Ely Limestone (Mississippian-Pennsylvanian) in the Confusion Range of western Utah. The bryozoan assemblage includes 15 genera and 18 species; 12 species are new and 6 are in open nomenclature. The new species are the trepostomes Callocladia jensensis, Stenopora confusionensis, Stenoporella mineriensis, Tabulipora atacta, T. ricta, T. sarcinula, T. stragula, the cryptostomes Ascopora macellata, Rhabdomeson artum, Streblotrypa angulatum, Strebloplax pertusa, and the cystoporate Cystodictya astrepta. Species in open nomenclature are the trepostome Anisotrypa sp., the cryptostomes Saffordotaxis sp., Archimedes sp., Fenestella sp., Penniretepora sp. A, and Polypora sp. Callocladia and Strebloplax are known only from Chesterian strata in North America; Strebloplax is known only from the conterminous United States. The stratigraphic range of Stenoporella, also known only from the United States, is extended into rocks of supposed Pennsylvanian age. Stenoporella mineriensis, the only species in this bryozoan assemblage known to occur outside Utah, is also found in the Ely Limestone (Pennsylvanian) of Nevada.

Tabulipora is the dominant genus in the Chesterian rocks of this region; T. sarcinula and T. ricta are the most abundant taxa. The shallowing of the marine environment and the establishment of carbonate deposition during late Chainman time permitted widespread development and dispersal of the bryozoan faunas in western Utah.

Two life positions of fossil naticid opercula are recognized in Pliocene deposits of Hokkaido, northern Japan. In one position, the operculum seals the aperture. In the other position, the operculum is pressed against the shell base adjacent to the aperture. The death position of the head-foot mass can be reconstructed from the two opercular positions, which coincide, respectively, to naticids that died with the head-foot mass retracted into the shell, and those that died with it entirely extended from the shell.

Conularina triangulata (Raymond, 1905), the genotype of Conularina Sinclair, 1942, is a rare, early Late Ordovician conulariid (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa; Van Iten et al., 2006) having three sides or faces instead of four (Sinclair, 1942, fig. 9; Van Iten, 1992, text-fig. 3E). Originally described from the Valcour Formation (early Sandbian; Dix et al., 2013) on Valcour Island, New York (Sinclair, 1942), C. triangulata has since been found in laterally equivalent strata of the upper Laval Formation (‘Upper Chazy’; Sinclair, 1942) in Laval, Québec, Canada (Sinclair, 1942). From this same unit and area, Sinclair (1942) erected three new, four-sided species of Conularina (C. irrasa, C. raymondi, and C. undosa), and he erected a single four-sided species (C. narrawayi) from the Ottawa Formation (now the Sandbian–Katian Ottawa Group; Dix et al., 2013) at Tétreauville (now Gatineau), Québec. Subsequently, Jerre (1994) reported the occurrence of two species of Conularina in the Upper Ordovician of Sweden. Jerre (1994) also proposed that Eoconularia? forensis Sinclair, 1946 from the Upper Ordovician Citadelle Formation (‘Quebec City’ Formation; Sinclair, 1946) in Québec City, Québec (Promontoire de Québec thrust sheet, Appalachian Humber Zone, Allochtonous Domain; Castonguay et al., 2002) is a species of Conularina.

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.

Jurassic–Cretaceous ammonites are particularly robust fossil tools in global stratigraphy and correlation. The successive evolution and extinction of these cephalopod mollusks was so rapid that many ammonite zones are no more than one million years in duration. A well-preserved ammonite specimen from the Fortissimo-1 core, Browse Basin, NW Australia is assignable to the widespread latest Jurassic dimorphic berriaselline genus, Blanfordiceras Cossmann, recorded previously from the Spiti area, Nepal, Tibet, Madagascar, Papua-New Guinea, Antarctica, and southern South America. This is the first report of ammonites of this age in the Australian region. The evolute shell of an estimated 90-100 mm diameter (when extrapolated) and pronounced ornamentation of variably bifurcating, curvilinear and flexuous ribs, intercalated with simple, non-bifurcating ribs, is consistent with Blanfordiceras wallichi (Gray, 1832), which has traditionally been restricted to the uppermost Tithonian Stage, ca. 146.5-145.5 Ma, but may well have survived into the earliest part of the Berriasian. The first recorded occurrence of this ammonite in Australia fills an anomalous absence in the paleobiogeographic distribution of Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary ammonites in the Indo-SW Pacific Subrealm with important implications for the calibration of offshore rocks and wells in Australia.

Early Devonian (Pragian-Emsian) rocks in the Xainza region of central Xizang (Tibet) yield a shallow-marine, carbonate-platform fauna of corals, brachiopods, dacryoconarids, nautiloids and conodonts, among which Tibetatrypa n. gen. is locally a prominent constituent. The fauna broadly resembles that of western Europe, the Altai-Sayan region, the Urals and western Qinlin province of China, but differs from the South China faunas. Tibetatrypa, related to the Silurian genus Nalivkinia, is the youngest and largest member of the subfamily Clintonellinae, and is the first Devonian brachiopod described from Tibet.

An enigmatic microproblematicum, Tuxekanella Riding and Soja (1993), has been identified in the shallow water carbonate succession of the Late Silurian Skala formation (Podolia, Ukraine). the newly found specimens suggest most probably the algal nature of this enigmatic microfossil. Tuxekanella is known only from two extremely distant regions at the moment: the Alexander terrane in Alaska and Podolia. the possibility of their paleobiogeographical link is discussed in the context of paleotectonic models, assuming the peri-Gondwanan origin of the Alexander Terrane.

This short paper is prepared to help potential authors prepare manuscripts in the correct format for submission to the Journal. Correct preparation greatly speeds the editorial process and makes for less revision by the author.

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The siphonophrentidae is a family of Devonian rugose corals that are known mostly from eastern North America, a part of the Eastern Americas biogeographical Realm (EAR) during the Devonian. Breviphrentis Stumm, 1949, has been considered a siphonophrentid by most previous authors and, in a recent monograph (Oliver, 1993), I described three EAR species as Breviphrentis and referred others to the genus.