Two new species, Harpactocarcinus yozgatensis from the early Eocene (Ypresian) Yoncali Formation of Turkey and H. dalmatius from the middle Eocene (Bartonian) Foraminiferal limestones of Hvar Island, Croatia, are described. Harpactocarcinus yozgatensis suggests an early Eocene origin of the genus. Their discovery posits a more easterly point of origin for the genus than was previously known, a position which is supported by the foraminiferal assemblages of both localities. Evaluation of species referred to Harpactocarcinus has resulted in one new combination, Neozanthopsis achalzicus (Bittner in Abich, 1882).

The Pseudokoldinioidia Fauna is a newly documented uppermost Cambrian trilobite assemblage from the Dongjeom Formation of the Taebaek Group, Taebaeksan Basin, Korea. It is characterized by low species diversity comprising six trilobite taxa: Micragnostus chiushuensis, Koldinioidia typicalis, leiostegiid genus and species indeterminate, Pseudokoldinioidia perpetis, Onychopyge borealis, and pilekiid genus and species indeterminate. Of these, special attention has been paid to Pseudokoldinioidia perpetis, which was originally assigned to Missisquoia, an index fossil for the uppermost Cambrian in Laurentia. Pseudokoldinioidia is restricted to eastern Asia, whereas Missisquoia is confined to Laurentia. The appearance of the Pseudokoldinioidia Fauna is interpreted as contemporaneous with the base of the ‘Missisquoia’ perpetis Zone of North China, which in turn is correlated with the base of the Missisquoia typicalis Subzone of Laurentia. The associated Koldinioidia and Onychopyge make it possible to compare the Pseudokoldinioidia Fauna of Korea and North China with the latest Cambrian trilobite assemblages of South China, Australia, South America, and Mexico, and also suggests an interesting biogeographic connection among these areas in the latest Cambrian.

New Devonian (Frasnian and Famennian) crinoids are described from central and eastern Iran and a new Mississippian (late Tournaisian) echinoderm fauna is described from the south flank of the Alborz Mountains of northern Iran. Both the Devonian and Mississippian echinoderms were living in a carbonate shelf basin on the northern flank of Gondwana at approximately 30° south latitude.

The geographic ranges of Hexacrinites and Eutaxocrinus are extended onto the northern margin of Gondwana and add to the sparsely known Famennian crinoids. The Mississippian fauna is dominated numerically and in diversity by cladids, unlike most late Tournaisian faunas that are dominated by camerates in numbers, if not diversity. The late Tournaisian fauna is most similar to a coeval fauna from southern Iran, both of which have a noted lack of actinocrinitids and rare platycrinitids. It also shows similarity with Tournaisian faunas of western North America with four common genera.

New species introduced are: Hexacrinites persiaensis, Eutaxocrinus risehensis, Dichocrinus damghanensis, Amabilicrinus stellatus, Bridgerocrinus alborzensis, Bridgerocrinus semnanensis, Paracosmetocrinus mobarakensis, Decadocrinus clypeus, and Palaechinus iranensis.

Identification of tracemakers is of primary importance for evaluating the biotic interactions inferred from bore holes in fossil shell assemblages. Domicile bore holes in the subapical whorls of gastropods produced by spionid polychaete Dipolydora sp., supposed to be commensal with hermit crabs, are common in dead gastropod assemblages from deepwater habitats in the Philippines. These holes exhibit unique features and support a new criterion for the interpretation of nonpredatory borings in fossil gastropods. Diagnostic of these bore holes are: small circular to elliptical outer opening, the presence of weak dissolution of the columella beneath the bore hole, and the presence of a hollowed tube composed of detritus held together with mucus within some gastropod whorls anterior to the hole. The two selection factors of subapical whorls and elongate shells are supplementary criteria for recognition of these holes. Bore holes are recognized here in a deepwater gastropod assemblage from the upper Pliocene Shinzato Formation of Okinawa, Japan, and named Polydorichnus subapicalis n. igen. and isp. These holes are identical to modern examples exhibiting similar site and species selectivity. P. subapicalis has its oldest fossil record in the upper Miocene of the Philippines, was common in offshore assemblages from the Miocene onward, and is a good indicator of occupation by a hermit crab and for commensalism between polychaetes and hermit crabs.

The Nemestrinidae or tangle-veined flies are a small group of brachycerous flies with about 300 extant and fossil species (Evenhuis, 1994). Many of them are large to medium-sized flies with a densely pilose body. They have a unique wing venation with a compound diagonal vein which is an apomorphic character for Nemestrinidae (Yeates, 1994). The diagonal vein comprises elements of veins R, M, and Cu and it crosses the wing obliquely. Adult nemestrinids often occur in open areas and many feed on the nectar of flowers (Richter, 1997). Nemestrinid larvae appear to be internal parasitoids of Orthoptera (grasshoppers) and can even control the population numbers of Acridoidea (Orthoptera: Caelifera); however, the species of Hirmoneura Meigen, 1820 develop in larvae of scarabaeid beetles (Richter, 1997). As far as is known, the female places the eggs in the host's habitat and the first-instar larvae actively search out their host. Larval development takes about 40 days, but there may be a long diapause (inactive period) before 20 to 30 days of pupation take place. Adults live for about 25 to 45 days (Richter, 1997).

Jugiaster n. gen. is based on the Upper Ordovician asteroid (Echinodermata) Petraster speciosus; in addition, a second Upper Ordovician occurrence, Phyrtosaster casteri, new gen. and sp., is described. Both species exhibit mouth frame characters suggestive of those long considered typical of early ophiuroids, thereby demonstrating the adaptive versatility and complexity of asterozoan diversification. Jugiaster specimens also exhibit delicate ambulacral column articulation. The new fossils indicate the need for much further study before early asterozoan history will be well understood.

An echinoderm fauna from the Lower Devonian (Lochkovian) Cravatt Member of the Bois d'Arc Formation near Clarita, Oklahoma, has yielded specimens of recumbent, essentially bilaterally symmetrical taxa which are similar to Ordovician genera but absent or sparsely represented in Silurian strata. Claritacarpus smithi n. gen. and sp., is a dendrocystitid homoiostele with morphology similar to the Late Ordovician Dendrocystoides Jaekel, 1918; the anomalocystitid stylophoran Victoriacystis aff. holmesorum Ruta and Jell, 1999 shows strong affinities to Victoriacystis holmesorum Ruta and Jell, 1999, Humevale Formation, of Victoria, Australia; and the pleurocystitid rhombiferan, Turgidacystis graffhami n. gen. and sp., has close affinities to the Middle Ordovician Coopericystis Parsley, 1970 of West Virginia and Henicocystis Jell, 1983 of Victoria, Australia. Claritacarpus and Turgidacystis are North American range extensions for homoiosteles and pleurocystitids, respectively, being previously unknown from rocks younger than Upper Ordovician. Globally, Silurian homoiosteles and pleurocystitids are unknown although both occur in the Lower Devonian of Germany and Australia; additionally, Early Devonian pleurocystitids are known from Great Britain and Bohemia. These genera illustrate a pseudoextinction pattern suggesting a significant unsampled Silurian “homalozoan” and pleurocystitid history.

Well-preserved, newly hatched coiled nautiloids from the late Paleozoic are relatively unusual. Thus, the recovery of a hatchling specimen from the Sosio Limestone (Permian, probably Wordian) of Italy that can be assigned to Sholakoceras cf. S. pleuronautiloides (Gemmellaro, 1890) is notable. The embryonic and posthatchling shell of S. cf. S. pleuronautiloides shows some morphological similarities to Recent Nautilus Linnaeus, 1758; however, some dissimilarities are significant, and these features have implications on the overall phylogenetic pattern exhibited by these organisms through time and the evolutionary processes that led to that pattern.

In the course of ongoing revision of the ant genus Myrmica Latreille, 1804, we located, in the collections of the Russian and Polish Academies of Sciences, pieces of Baltic Amber (Late Eocene, ca. 40 Ma; earlier this amber was considered to be Oligocene, e.g., see Wheeler, 1915; Larsson, 1978; Bolton, 1995; Dlussky, 1997), that each contained a fossilized specimen of Myrmica. We were also fortunate to be given access to a piece of Saxonian Amber (the same age as Baltic Amber) from the collection of Manfred Kutscher that contained three specimens of Myrmica. Four of the specimens belong to two new species. We describe these below, placing them in context with extant species, and we re-appraise all previously described fossil Myrmica, providing a key to the identification of the five extinct “true” Myrmica species.

Extinct organisms with no close analogs and only distant living relatives are especially difficult subjects for paleobiological interpretation. Graptolites, especially the derived planktic Graptoloidea, are among this group of enigmatic fossils. Although the Pterobranchia are widely regarded as a sister group to graptolites, their entirely benthic, loosely organized colonies provide a poor analog for the mobile, highly integrated graptoloid colonies with their complex geometries. As a consequence, many basic features of zooid form and function are unknown. Under these circumstances, particularly troubling features—that is, features that do not readily fit into our simple models—may provide critical data with which to reform the models. It is with this hope that we describe here new observations of some graptolite specimens of the genus Appendispinograptus (Li Zhi-Ming and Li Da-Qing, 1985) and suggest a model for their function.

Marine crustaceans were not known as inclusions in amber from upper Aptian–middle Albian deposits in Northern Spain. The publication of a photograph of a purported fossil amphipod (Alonso et al., 2000) among many other arthropods promised to be of high interest because the fossil record of the amphipoda does not extend further than Upper Eocene (Schram, 1986; Coleman and Myers, 2000). The Museum of Natural Sciences of Álava in Vitoria-Gasteiz (AMNS), northern Spain, kindly sent us the material with the presumed amphipods, as our intention was to investigate its affinities to other fossil amphipods. The fossil crustaceans of this assemblage were found among 15 orders of insects, spiders, and mites—i.e., mainly terrestrial arthropods.

Sphinctozoans are the most abundant hypercalcified sponge group within the Late Triassic shallow water carbonates of the Tethyan realm. They have been described from numerous localities of western Tethys (European region) and northern Tethys (Pamir Mountains), but relatively little is known about Triassic sphinctozoans and hypercalcified sponges from the southern and eastern areas of the Tethyan realm (Senowbari-Daryan and García-Bellido, 2002). The discovery of new, well-preserved sphinctozoan material is an important addition to knowledge of the sponge fauna of the region. Bernecker (1996) and Senowbari-Daryan et al. (1999) reported on some Late Triassic sphinctozoans and other hypercalcified sponges from Oman in the Arabian Peninsula, but no other data are available from the south-central portion of Tethys along the north margin of Gondwana. Elliott (1963) described a small, chambered organism from the Paleocene of northern Iraq as a sphinctozoan sponge (Calymenospongia kurdistanens), but this has a maximum diameter of 0.72 mm and appears to be an agglutinated foraminifer, not a sponge (Senowbari-Daryan and García-Bellido, 2002). Hajarispongia osmani n. gen. and sp., the first sphinctozoan sponge reported from the United Arab Emirates, is a multibranched sphinctozoan with large areas of exterior wall surface exposed and positioned so that it can be longitudinally sectioned along three branches, cut in oriented sections, and examined externally as well as internally. The combination of characters present in this sponge shows the need for describing an additional genus of sphinctozoan sponges and revising sponges previously placed in the genus Colospongia (Laube, 1865). The classification of hypercalcified sponges proposed by Finks and Rigby (2004) is used for description of sponges in this paper. Morphological terms conform to the terminology presented in Kaesler (2004) and illustrated by Rigby and Potter (1986), of which the following terms are of special importance in the description and study of Hajarispongia: 1) cribribulla—inward facing, blisterlike sieve at the inner end of an exaulos; 2) cribripore—small pores in sievelike cribribulla; and, 3) exaulos—spoutlike tube in sponge wall.