Calcareous algae are frequent constituents in the shallow-marine limestone intercalations of late Aptian–Maastrichtian strata of the Eastern Desert of Egypt, the Sinai, and southern Jordan. A total of 18 species of green algae (among them 16 dasycladaceans with Praturlonella hammudai n. comb. and Praturlonella jordanica n. sp., two udoteaceans) and eight species of red algae (among them two gymnocodiaceans, three solenoporaceans, and one squamariacean) are described and compared with algae from several Tethyan occurrences. The stratigraphic distribution is calibrated by 10 assemblage-zones based on the associated foraminiferids and compared with 10 ammonite assemblage-zones.

The algal contents vary within the different strata: their total contents and diversities increase from the late Aptian–Albian carbonates to the Cenomanian and decrease to the Turonian–Coniacian; no algae were proved in the Santonian–Campanian. The Maastrichtian occurrences are limited to one outcrop.

There are relatively few large collections of decapod crustacean fossils in the museums of the world. Most of them are well known and serve as depositories for numerous type and figured specimens that are documented in the literature. The purpose of this note is to call attention to the extensive decapod crustacean collection in the Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Brussels–a collection that is largely attributable to the efforts of the late Dr. Victor Van Straelen.

Size increase in European Miocene Anchitherium was described early in the century. Increase in size, particularly of the teeth, was common to the middle and late Miocene Eurasian Anchitherium and North American Hypohippus, including Megahippus, over the whole Holarctic range of these anchitherines. In this paper, size trends are described and interpreted against the background of simultaneous climatic change.

Several specimens of a pollen organ containing Monoletes pollen occur in a single coal ball collected from the Herrin No. 6 Coal at the Sahara Coal Company Mine in southern Illinois. Specimens are 3–4 cm long, up to 1 cm wide, and are either bilobed or trilobed; 5–7 pollen sacs are arranged along each side of a discontinuously sclerified ground tissue plate extending into each lobe. The vascular supply from the peduncle breaks up by repeated dichotomies and one bundle descends along the outer side of each pollen sac. The mode of dehiscence and the structure of the tip of the organ remain unknown. Each lobe (and contained sporangia) is hypothesized to be derived from an ancestral fertile frond segment bearing pendulous sporangia.

Recently, several dinosaur bones were rediscovered in the paleontological collections at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with a label indicating that the material was collected from the Cretaceous of west Tennessee. Since dinosaur remains have never been reported from Tennessee, this discovery prompted further investigation.

An almost complete specimen of the pentacrinid Seirocrinus subangularis (Miller, 1821) is described from the Red Deer Member of the Fernie Formation in the Rocky Mountains of central-western Alberta. Associated ammonites representing the Stokesi Subzone of the Margaritatus Zone indicate a Late Pliensbachian (Early Jurassic) age for the specimen. Taphonomic features suggest preservation in soft muds on a quiet, oxygen-deficient seafloor, so that the lower surface is preserved intact while ossicles on the exposed upper surface became disarticulated and were slightly disturbed. This occurrence in western Canada represents a major extension of the geographic range of the species.

Direct physical evidence for predation upon decapod crustaceans is extremely limited in the fossil record. Although it is well recognized that decapods serve as a food resource for a wide variety of vertebrate and invertebrate predators and that the remains of decapods, in the forms of molts and corpses, are readily scavenged, direct evidence for these activities is limited (Tshudy et al., 1989). Bishop (1975) summarized evidences for predation in the fossil record and, although he frequently referred to decapods as predators, cited only one example (Bishop, 1972) of the group as prey. Thus, the discovery of three specimens of freshwater decapods, referable to the crayfish family Cambaridae, that clearly exhibit the effects of predation is significant.

New material of the poraspid Alainaspis platyrhina Elliott and Dineley has made it possible to provide a more extensive reconstruction of this animal. It is now clear that an elongated branchial opening was present below the lateral lamina and that a well-developed post-branchial lobe was present. No branchial plate has been identified and this may have been fused to the dorsal shield, forming the ventral lamina. The lateral lamina is now seen to terminate in a rounded angle before the posterior margin of the shield. Several ventral shields with similar ornament are identified as belonging to A. platyrhina. These are broad and deep and are consistent with the original interpretation of this animal as a filter feeder. One similar shield with a coarser ornament is tentatively assigned to the closely related species Boothiaspis ovata Broad.

Pterosaurs are rare components of Texas Cretaceous faunas. The best known is Quetzalcoatlus northropi, from the Javelina Formation (Maastrichtian) of Big Bend National Park, with a wingspan of some 11-12 m (Lawson, 1975; Langston, 1986; Busbey and Lehmann, 1989). Texas pterosaur specimens of less spectacular proportions include a pteranodontid partial humerus (USNM 13804) from the Eagle Ford Formation (late Cenomanian-late Turonian) of Austin (Gilmore, 1935; Bennett, 1989) and a first wing phalanx of a pterodactyloid from the Buda Formation (Cenomanian) of Hays County (Langston, 1974; Lawson, 1975). Pterosaur bones were also recorded at localities near Forestburg, Montague County (Zangerl and Denison, 1950), in the Antlers Formation (Winkler et al., 1990), although these specimens are undiagnostic hollow bone fragments.

Utaherpeton franklini n. gen. and sp., from the Manning Canyon Shale Formation of Utah, is the oldest known microsaur. The horizon is dated as equivalent to the lowermost Namurian B of Europe (transitional from Upper Mississippian into lowermost Pennsylvanian in North American terminology) on the basis of a rich assemblage of fossil plants. The specimen may be tentatively placed within the suborder Microbrachomorpha. It exhibits the primitive character state for many microsaur features, but no synapomorphies are recognized that support a specific sister-group relationship between microsaurs and any other group of Paleozoic tetrapods.