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.

Trilobites from the upper Guzhangian of the southern Argentine Precordillera, preliminarily described by Carlos Rusconi in the 1950s, are revised herein. The specimens studied were collected from an allochthonous limestone block of La Cruz Olistoliths at 200 m northwest of Estancia San Isidro locality (San Isidro area, Mendoza). Taxa comprise Kormagnostus seclusus (Walcott, 1884), Cedaria prolifica Walcott, 1924, C. puelchana Rusconi, 1954, Tricrepicephalus texanus (Shumard, 1861), Meteoraspis metra (Walcott, 1890), Coosia conicephala (Rusconi, 1954) new combination, Coosella texana? Resser, 1942, Nasocephalus cf. N. nasutus Wilson, 1954, and Olenoides proa (Rusconi, 1954) new combination. The North American genera Meteoraspis Resser, 1935 and Nasocephalus Wilson, 1954 are reported confidently from South America for the first time. This assemblage is representative of the Cedaria prolifica Zone, which correlates with the lower Crepicephalus Zone of the traditional North American genus-based zonation. Most of the genera and species identified were previously described exclusively from Canada, the United States, and northwestern Mexico, a fact that provides new support to an allochthonous Laurentian origin of the Argentine Precordillera.

An assemblage of 34 chiton valves collected from rocks of the “Imperial” Formation sensu lato at Super Creek near Palm Springs, California, is described here. The sedimentary rocks exposed at Super Creek were deposited in the proto-Gulf of California during the Late Miocene. This chiton assemblage represents the first reported Miocene chitons from western North America. The chiton valves are classified as Callistochiton cf. C. elenensis, Chaetopleura cf. C. lanuginosa mixta, Calloplax roederi n. sp., Chiton solaris n. sp., Callistoplacidae sp. indet., and Chaetopleuridae sp. indet. Thick valves dominate the assemblage. The chiton fossils reflect the overall faunal pattern from the “Imperial” Formation s.l. of a strong similarity to taxa in the modern Gulf of California, with a Caribbean component as well. This assemblage fills a gap in the chiton fossil record and preserves details of the adaptive radiation of the Polyplacophora that occurred at the time in concert with the onset of an upwelling regime.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/9947bfc9-84a3-4358-bac7-e660b936b067

The apparatus of Vogelgnathus simplicatus (Rhodes, Austin, and Druce, 1969) is reconstructed from discrete elements from a sample of limited diversity from the Limerick Province (Ireland). The apparatus is typical of the order Ozarkodinida and the P1 element was previously placed within Gnathodus. Here we assign it to Vogelgnathus by applying a multielemental concept rather than using P1 element morphology. The holotype and paratypes are re-illustrated and the species distribution revised based on published data. Vogelgnathus simplicatus ranges from the late Tournaisian to the early Viséan (Mississippian, Carboniferous), with common occurrences relating to the growth of Waulsortian bank complexes in a high-stand sea-level along the southern and western margins of the Laurussian landmass (Belgium, the British Isles, the Republic of Ireland, and USA). Vogelgnathus simplicatus appears to represent the rootstock from which deep-water and shallow-water Viséan species of Vogelgnathus evolved in the Mississippian.

Rousseau h. flower (1913-1988) collected and published widely in paleontology during a career that spanned more than 50 years. Although Rousseau did significant paleontological work while employed elsewhere, the major part of his career was spent at the New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources (NMBM&MR), a career that included a decade of work after his formal retirement (Wolberg, 1988). During his life, Rousseau built a very large fossil collection based upon his own field work., materials other scientists referred to him for study, material sent to him by serious amateurs, and collections Rousseau borrowed from other institutions and was unable to return before his death. The NMBM&MR is attempting to find and return all borrowed material. Similarly, we intend to transfer much described fossil material to major repositories with appropriate facilities for their maintenance in order to make the fossils available to as many interested students as possible. The guidelines for the transfer of this material were set by Rousseau before his death.

The Mississippian was a time of widespread diversification of pelmatozoan echinoderms in the United States. The crinoids and blastoids were diverse and abundant in a variety of geologic settings. Most of the Osagean occurrences of blastoids are associated with platform carbonates such as the Burlington Limestone. These blastoids lived in association with a crinoid community dominated by camerate crinoids. Blastoids also lived in coeval Osagean deltaic environments such as the Borden Delta but were less diverse and abundant.

Rare specimens of eldonioids recovered from the lower Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 4) Emu Bay Shale (EBS) Konservat-Lagerstätte represent the first record of the group for the Cambrian of East Gondwana. The disc-shaped body of the EBS taxon bears fine concentric corrugations on the dorsal surface and, ventrally, a series of internal lobes that have primary and secondary bifurcations, as well as a coiled sac. It appears to be most similar to Rotadiscus and Pararotadiscus of the Cambrian Chengjiang and Kaili biotas of South China, respectively. While the structure of the internal lobes would indicate that this occurrence in the EBS represents a new taxon within the Rotadiscidae, lack of detail regarding the precise number of internal lobes and the condition of the circumoral tentacles warrants a more conservative approach in leaving the genus and species under open nomenclature. The EBS specimens also host trace fossils, including the remains of a burrow, which are generally lacking in the body-fossil-bearing layers of the Konservat-Lagerstätte interval. These traces appear to have been made by small organisms and are similar to traces associated with the discs of Pararotadiscus guizhouensis Zhao and Zhu, 1994 from the Kaili Biota. The available taphonomic, paleoenvironmental, and ichnological evidence indicates that the EBS eldonioids are most likely vagrants that were transported or settled into the ‘preservational trap’ and subsequently exposed on the substrate for a brief period before burial, thereby allowing organisms to exploit their carcasses for nutrients or other purposes.

The geologic record of the shallow-marine gastropod genus Pseudoperissolax Clark, 1918 is documented in detail for the first time in a region of the northeast Pacific extending from southwestern Washington to northern Baja California, Mexico. This genus, which has been erroneously equated with the nomen dubium Perrisolax Gabb, 1861, comprises a very small group of species whose supra-generic ranking has been inconsistent. Pseudoperissolax is placed here in family Muricidae Rafinesque, 1815 and subfamily Muricinae Rafinesque, 1815 based on the presence of varices, a club-shaped last whorl with noded carinae, and a long siphonal canal. The genus is represented in the northeast Pacific by the late Paleocene Pseudoperissolax tricarnatus (Weaver, 1905) and the late Paleocene to late Eocene Pseudoperissolax blakei (Conrad, 1855).

Pseudoperissolax was a warm-water gastropod that most likely originated during the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) in Madagascar and also questionably spread during this time to southern New Zealand. Its certain geologic range is early Paleocene to earliest Oligocene, with occurrences in western Kamchatka, southern Japan, southwestern Washington, southwestern Oregon, southern California, northern Baja California, Mexico, southern Alabama, and Nuevo León, northeastern Mexico. Whether Pseudoperissolax migrated into the northeast Pacific from Kamchatka or from Alabama and Mexico cannot be determined with certainty. The decline and eventual extinction of the genus coincided with the global-cooling event at the end of the Eocene.

Ichthyerpeton bradleyae (Huxley in Wright and Huxley, 1866) is one of the seven tetrapods originally described by Huxley from the Jarrow Assemblage (Pennsylvanian, Langsettian Regional Substage equated with the Bashkirian International Stage) in south-eastern Ireland. The holotype, one of only two specimens considered to represent the taxon, consists of the postcranial skeleton, which has been highly compressed and has undergone extensive replacement of bone by carbonaceous material. The holotype is studied using microcomputed tomography, which reveals that the vertebral column has at least 25 diplospondylous vertebrae with cylindrical centra. Neural arches and a haemal arch are described for the first time. Neural arches in the caudal region are paired and neural spines only contact one another dorsally. The hemal arch is fused and wraps around the ventral margin of the centrum. A stout femur and tibia are described. The morphology of the femur is unique for early tetrapods, with fibular and tibial condyles of similar length and lacking an adductor crest. The morphology of the femur, and its length relative to the tibia, suggests that the holotype of I. bradleyae preserves an immature individual. The tibia is a flat bone characteristic of stem tetrapods. Phalanges from the right and left pes are present. Because the phalanges are disarticulated, a phalangeal count cannot be determined. Despite the new anatomical information, the systematic position of I. bradleyae is still difficult to establish; however, it does not belong within the colosteids, temnospondyls, or embolomeres, to which it has previously been assigned.

The Suwannee Limestone of Florida and Georgia, USA, is a carbonate paleoenvironment with a rich diversity of marine fossils. These record the presence of coral- and seagrass-bearing communities in the western Atlantic from the Eocene/Oligocene boundary to the mid Oligocene (33.9–28.1 Ma). From the Suwannee Limestone, we describe two new species of the cosmopolitan, diverse, and abundant coral genus Acropora (“staghorn corals”), Acropora suwanneensis new species and Acropora upchurchi new species, which predate all other described Acropora species from the Americas and Caribbean by at least 10 million years. Diminutive skeletal structure in both species is indicative of their living in protected calm-water habitats. At their time of occurrence, an Atlantic–Pacific connection was open through Central America. Both species belong to morphological lineages also present in the fossil record of the eastern Atlantic (Europe, or the western Tethys). These lineages no longer occur in the Atlantic Ocean, but they are extant in the Indo-Pacific region, with the closest modern relative of each new species occurring in the Pacific Ocean to central Indo-Pacific. Some species in the two morphological lineages have existed for up to 20+ million years. The new species may have played a part in perpetuating a cosmopolitan Tethyan fauna and expanding Acropora habitats in the western Atlantic, by which they likely also contributed to the renowned species and habitat diversity of Acropora in the modern Indo-Pacific.

UUID https://zoobank.org/40118623-8b82-4352-a065-b58da74a5c41

Walcottaspis vanhornei (Walcott, 1914) is a large, late Cambrian trilobite with a unique pygidial morphology known only from a narrow outcrop belt of the St. Lawrence Formation in the Upper Mississippi Valley. Found in carbonate-rich layers within heterolithic facies that represent the toesets of a prograding shoreface, it is restricted to a single or small number of parasequences. Only four specimens of any of its sclerites have been illustrated previously. Here holaspid examples of all its biomineralized sclerites are described and illustrated, along with a morphometric analysis of cranidial landmarks and landmarks plus semilandmarks for the pygidium. Ontogenetic allometry accounts for 29% of the variance among holaspid cranidia and includes a relative shortening and narrowing of the palpebral lobe and a reduction in the relative length and width of the frontal area. Notable pygidial phenotypic variation occurs in the extent of the postaxial region and in the proportion of the structure occupied by the axis. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that W. vanhornei is sister taxon to Dikelocephalus minnesotensis Owen, 1852, which also occurs in the St. Lawrence Formation and has a broadly similar cephalon but distinctive trunk. The holaspid pygidium of W. vanhornei is uniquely characterized by the interpleural furrows of the first two segments becoming abruptly obsolete on approaching the axial furrow. Some pygidia show narrow, shallow, flat-bottomed grooves etched into the internal sides of the dorsal surface or doublure that apparently represent infestation of the live trilobite.

This study provides the first focused investigation of rudist bivalves from the Upper Cretaceous of the Gulf Coastal Plain (GCP) in the southern US and previously undescribed specimens from the Flor de Alba Limestone Member of the Pozas Formation in Puerto Rico. Identified rudists from the GCP comprise the Monopleuridae, including Gyropleura, as well as Radiolitidae, including Biradiolites cardenasensi, Durania maxima, Guanacastea jamaicensis, Radiolites acutocostata, and Sauvagesia. Integrating rudist occurrences within well-established GCP biostratigraphy allows for extension of upper ranges of D. maxima and R. acutocostata into the late Campanian, and extension of the lower ranges of B. cardenasensis and G. jamaicensis into the early Campanian. Identified rudists from Puerto Rico comprise the Hippuritidae and include Barrettia monilifera, which supports the age of the Flor de Alba Limestone Member of the Pozas Formation as middle Campanian. Combined taxonomic, biostratigraphic, and paleobiogeographic analyses indicate there is no rudist fauna endemic to the GCP, and the region marks the northeastern range of the Caribbean genera Biradiolites, Durania, Guanacastea, Gyropleura, Radiolites, and Sauvagesia during the Campanian and Maastrichtian. The new occurrences help inform future updates of Late Cretaceous sea surface-current reconstructions for the Caribbean and Western Interior Seaway, USA.

The terminal Ediacaran Period is signaled worldwide by the first appearance of skeletonizing tubular metazoan fossils, e.g., Cloudina Germs, 1972 and Sinotubulites Chen, Chen, and Qian, 1981. Although recent efforts have focused on evaluating the taxic composition and preservation of such assemblages from the southwestern United States, comparable forms reported in the 1980s from Mexico remain to be re-examined. Here, we reassess the latest Ediacaran skeletal materials from the La Ciénega Formation of the Caborca region in Sonora, Mexico, using a combination of analytical methods: optical microscopy of extracted fossils, thin-section petrography, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray tomographic microscopy. From our examination, we conclude that the La Ciénega hosts a polytaxic assemblage of latest Ediacaran tubular organisms that have been preserved through two taphonomic pathways: coarse silicification and calcareous recrystallization preserving finer details. Further, these fossils show signs that their shells might not have been inflexible or completely mineralized in vivo, and that they might also record tentatively interpreted predation traces in the form of drill holes or puncture marks. This work, along with ongoing efforts around the world, helps to provide a framework for biostratigraphic correlation and possible subdivision of the Ediacaran Period, and further shapes our view of metazoan evolution and ecology in the interval directly preceding the Cambrian explosion.

Predation is a behavior that is commonly unsuccessful, but the cause of failure is often difficult to determine in the fossil record. Here, we report on gastropod drill holes in two Plio- and Miocene bivalve specimens from the Netherlands created from the inner side of the bivalve prey's shell, which we call reverse drill holes. These holes are unequivocally caused by failure of the gastropod drilling predators to make effective use of their chemoreception and mechanoreception sensory adaptations. We hypothesize that the diffuse nature of chemical cues emanating from dense aggregations of living prey could have confused foraging predators and stimulated them to initiate the drilling process on empty valves. Poor decision making due to hunger is an alternative hypothesis. These traces represent the first reported examples of reverse gastropod drill holes from the fossil record, and the first attributed to Naticidae. Compared to other types of failed predation (incomplete drill holes and drill holes in multiply-drilled specimens) in the two assemblages studied, reverse drill holes are rare (< 1% of drill holes). This result implies that the driller's sensory and decision-making processes were generally reliable at distinguishing dead from live prey.

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.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/a3eb532b-c341-489a-b0ff-ecf3f9466a76

Cribrilinid bryozoans originating from Pleistocene deep-water sediments from two localities near Messina (Sicily, Italy)—Capo Milazzo (Gelasian) and Scoppo (Calabrian)—were examined. Five cribrilinid species were found, three in each locality and time interval, with only one species shared. Three species, Cribrilaria profunda n. sp., Glabrilaria transversocarinata n. sp., and Figularia spectabilis n. sp., are new to science. Of the two remaining species, Figularia figularis was already known from local fossil associations, whereas Glabrilaria pedunculata, a present-day Mediterranean species, is recorded for the first time as a fossil. New combinations are suggested for two species previously assigned to Puellina, Cribrilaria saldanhai (Harmelin, 2001) n. comb. and Cribrilaria mikelae (Harmelin, 2006) n. comb. The diagnosis of the genus Figularia was amended to include an erect growth morphology in addition to the encrusting form, and the occurrence of ooecia formed by the distal kenozooid. Following a literature revision of all species currently assigned to Figularia, the new combinations Vitrimurella capitifera (Canu and Bassler, 1929) n. comb. and Hayamiellina quaylei (Powell, 1967a) n. comb. are suggested, and problematic species are listed and briefly discussed.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/b7b36152-bf7b-4e00-b6ec-2614b2a58f1b

Complete body fossils of salamanders are relatively rare, but provide critical information on the evolutionary roots of extant urodele clades. We describe new specimens of the fossil salamandrids Taricha oligocenica Van Frank, 1955, and Taricha lindoei Naylor, 1979, from the Oligocene Mehama and John Day formations of Oregon that illustrate aspects of skeletal morphology previously unseen in these taxa, and contribute to our understanding of population-level variation. Morphological analysis of these specimens supports the classification of T. oligocenica and T. lindoei as two different species, distinct from extant Taricha. Parsimony-based, heuristic analysis of phylogeny using 108 morphological characters for 40 taxa yields different results from a phylogenetic analysis that excludes four taxa known only via vertebrae. Our smaller analysis generally agrees with molecular phylogenies of the family Salamandridae, but with poorer resolution for molgin newts, especially between Taricha and Notophthalmus. The analysis including all taxa produced polytomies mostly related to complications from several fossil taxa. The presence or absence of dorsally expanded, sculptured neural spine tables on trunk vertebrae, an important character in past descriptions of fossil salamandrids, appears to be either homoplastic within the Salamandridae, or requires an expansion of characters or character states. Taricha oligocenica and T. lindoei are separate species of an at least 33 million-year-old clade, but their relationships with each other and extant North American salamandrids remain unclear with current levels of morphological data. Salamandrid research requires additional morphological data, particularly for the vertebrae and ribs, to better resolve salamandrid evolutionary history through morphological characters.