The genus Abertella Durham, 1953 initially was described to include one of several problematic species of Miocene sand dollars originally placed in Scutella Lamarck, 1816. Durham (1953) named Scutella aberti Conrad, 1842 as the type of Abertella, and later (1955) tried to resolve issues concerning familial relationships of North American scutellines by placing the genus in a monogeneric family, the Abertellidae. Durham (1953, p. 351) separated Abertella from other members in his assemblage of taxa related to Scutella because the former has: 1) an immediately submarginal periproct between the second pair of post-basicoronal plates; 2) moderately closed petaloids about three-quarters the length of the corresponding aboral ambulacrum (although he states this ratio as being two-thirds in the description itself); 3) widely disjunct oral interambulacra; 4) ambulacral basicoronals that are larger than interambulacral basicoronals (misstated, and corrected to say just the reverse in Durham [1955]); and 5) a well-developed notch in the posterior margin of the test. Abertella aberti (Conrad, 1842) is known from the coastal Miocene of the eastern United States, notably Maryland, North Carolina, and Florida (Durham, 1953; Cooke, 1959; McKinney, 1985).

Jurassic-Cretaceous sedimentation in Kutch took place on an epicontinental platform which experienced many transgressive-regressive phases and became progressively shallow (Biswas, 1991). As a result, marine fossils, like ammonites and other stenohaline groups, are not ubiquitous and uniformly distributed throughout the succession. From the Late Jurassic the Kutch basin witnessed major sea-level fluctuations and during the Tithonian the effects of transgressive-regressive couplets were more frequently registered. The record of ammonites in many areas, especially in the Indo–Madagascar Faunal Province, including Kutch (personal observation), are mainly associated with the transgressive events (Riccardi, 1991 and references therein). In Kutch, the spatiotemporal distribution of the ammonite-bearing beds is discrete in nature and these are not always regionally persistent. Many previous works based on the study of museum collections (e.g., Spath, 1927–1933) were plagued with stratigraphic imprecision and inadequate knowledge of the ammonite-rich localities, and generally lacked accurate lithologic description of any section. This led to poor resolution of the regional biostratigraphy based on Tithonian ammonites.

Students of conulariids have published a number of papers addressing the systematics and phylogenetic affinities of this intriguing group of marine metazoans (e.g., Kiderlen, 1937; Termier and Termier, 1949; Moore and Harrington, 1956; Werner, 1966, 1967; Kozlowski, 1968; Bischoff, 1978; Steul, 1984; Babcock and Feldmann, 1986a, 1986b; Babcock et al., 1987; Babcock, 1991; Van Iten, 1991, 1992a, 1992b; Jerre, 1994; Babcock et al., 1995; Brood, 1995; McKinney et al., 1995; Van Iten et al., 1996; Hughes et al., 2000; Van Iten et al., 2000; Collins, 2002). Hughes et al. (2000, p. 832), for example, argued that conulariids are an extinct order of scyphozoan cnidarians, suggesting further that the autapomorphies of the order Conulariida “may include” a “steeply pyramidal, phosphatic exoskeleton [showing] biradial symmetry [and having] flat facets bisected by midlines and separated by angular corners.” Under this concept, Conulariida can be interpreted to consist not only of Conularia Miller in Sowerby, 1821 and other post-Cambrian genera (e.g., Paraconularia Sinclair, 1940) traditionally placed within this taxon, but also of conulariid-like small shelly fossils, including Arthrochites Chen, 1982, Carinachites Qian, 1977, and Emeiconularia Qian, Van Iten, Cox, Zhu, and Zhuo, 1997, from the Lower Cambrian (Qian, 1989; Qian et al., 1997). However, previous work on the microstructure of conulariid-like small shelly taxa (Qian and Bengtson, 1989; Conway Morris and Chen, 1992; Qian et al., 1997) revealed certain differences between them and true conulariids. These differences, including the apparent absence of skeletal lamination in the small shelly fossils, suggest that assessments of the phylogenetic affinities of conulariids should also consider microstructural characters.

Allmon (1996, p. 45) erected the genus Palmerella for a clade of gastropods from the Paleocene and Eocene of the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coastal plains, almost all of which had formerly been placed in the genus Turritella Lamarck, 1799. The name Palmerella, however, was previously used by Cameron (1908) for a Recent ichneumonid wasp. I therefore here propose the name Kapalmerella new name as a replacement for Palmerella Allmon, 1996, not Cameron, 1908. As was the case for Palmerella Allmon, Kapalmerella is named in honor of Katherine Van Winkle Palmer (1895–1982) in recognition of her contributions to the systematics of coastal plain Paleogene turritellids. The type species of Kapalmerella is Turritella mortoni Conrad, 1830 by original designation (Allmon, 1996).

Members of the Lyttoniidae Waagen, 1883 (Lyttonioidea Waagen, 1883, Brachiopoda) are characterized by numerous peculiarities, including their disproportionately inequivalve, rudimentary articulatory apparatus and asymmetrically developed muscle scars. The ventral valve of lyttonioids usually possesses a posterior flap and complementary septal apparatus and the dorsal valve has corresponding lobes and slits to fit around the ventral septa (Noetling, 1905; Fredericks, 1926; Wanner, 1935; Williams, 1953; Grant, 1976; Williams et al., 2000). Externally, the Lyttoniidae have been previously described as being smooth or having some growth banding, lines, or disturbances only (Cooper and Grant, 1974; Williams et al., 2000). Spines were previously reported by Sarytcheva (1964), but subsequently not confirmed by Cooper and Grant (1974, p. 387) and Williams et al. (2000). Radial ornamentation has never been reported prior to this study. In 2002, two specimens with Linoproductus-like costellae and Old-hamina-like septal apparatus were found by one of the authors (CLR) from the Middle Permian Xiala Formation at the Xinji Section in the Xainza area (89–91°E, 30–31°N) in northern Tibet (Fig. 1.1, 1.2) during 1:250,000 mapping. We consider that the present specimens represent another distinct phylogenetic branch within the Lyttoniidae, although only two specimens were found. Further collecting is currently impossible because of the inaccessibility of the remote area in northern Tibet. In this paper we aim to propose a new subfamily of Lyttoniidae based on the specimens found from northern Tibet.

The midyear meeting of the Council of the Paleontological Society (PS) was called to order by President William I. Ausich at 8:22 a.m. on 3 April 2004, in the Executive Board Room of the National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, DC. Council members Patricia H. “Tricia” Kelley, David J. Bottjer, Mark E. Patzkowsky, Roger D. K. Thomas, Mark A. Wilson, Robert A. Gastaldo, Lisa E. Park, Russell D. “Tim” White, Dale A. Springer, Christopher A. Brochu, William A. DiMichele, John M. Pandolfi, Leif Tapanila, Thomas Olszewski, Craig W. Oyen, Scott M. Ritter, and Neil E. Tibert were present. Also attending parts of the meeting were Heather Joseph (President, BioOne) and H. Richard Lane (Program Director, Geology and Paleontology, Division of Earth Sciences, NSF).

Reports on Mississippian rostroconchs from the Appalachian basin are rare. Winchell (1871), Herrick (1888, 1890, 1891), Hyde (1953), and Hoare (1990, 2004) discussed taxa from Ohio. These reports concerned pre-Chesterian occurrences with the exception of the Chesterian Bransonia hydei Hoare, 1990 and Oxyprora sp. Hoare (2004) from the Maxville Limestone. Specimens of the new taxon were reported by Busanus (1974) as Conocardium spp. from the Chesterian Reynolds Limestone in northern West Virginia.

The meeting of the Outgoing Council of the Paleontological Society (PS) was called to order by President William I. Ausich at 5:08 p.m. on 6 November 2004, in Room 604 of the Colorado Convention Center. Council members Patricia H. Kelley, David J. Bottjer, Mark E. Patzkowsky, Roger D. K. Thomas, Robert A. Gastaldo, Lisa E. Park, Jonathan M. Adrain, William A. DiMichele, Russell D. “Tim” White, Mark A. Wilson, Dale A. Springer, Leif Tapanila, Elizabeth A. Heise, Thomas Olszewski, Craig W. Oyen, and Scott M. Ritter were present. Peter J. Harries, Editor of Priscum, was also present; Mary L. Droser participated in the last part of the meeting.

The polyplacophoran Matthevia Walcott, 1885 has been reported previously only from Cambrian rocks. Recovery of specimens of two different species of Matthevia from the top of the cherty lower Gasconade Dolomite in Missouri extends the known range of the genus into the Ordovician. The presence of the Lower Ordovician trilobite Praepatokephalus Lochman, 1964 in one collection provides the biostratigraphic evidence that the new specimens of Matthevia are Ordovician in age. Matthevia erecta n. sp. is described. An emended diagnosis for the trilobite Praepatokephalus is provided; two species of the genus are briefly described but are left in open nomenclature as P. sp. A and P. sp. B.