Fossil Friday Roundup: August 19th, 2016

Featured image: Paleontologists prepare to remove a Tyrannosaurus rex skull from a fossil dig site in northern Montana and transport it to the Burke Museum at the University of Washington. Credit: Dave DeMar/Burke Museum/University of Washington

Papers (all Open Access):

• Progress to extinction: increased specialisation causes the demise of animal clades (Scientific Reports)
• Formation of the Isthmus of Panama (Science Advances)
• Arktocara yakataga, a new fossil odontocete (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the Oligocene of Alaska and the antiquity of Platanistoidea (PeerJ)
• Ancient phylogenetic divergence of the enigmatic African rodent Zenkerella and the origin of anomalurid gliding (PeerJ)
• A new ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur from the Late Jurassic of Owadów-Brzezinki Quarry, Poland (APP)
• Demography of the Early Neolithic Population in Central Balkans: Population Dynamics Reconstruction Using Summed Radiocarbon Probability Distributions (PLOS ONE)
• The Small Mammal Sequence from the c. 76 – 72 ka Still Bay Levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa – Taphonomic and Palaeoecological Implications for Human Behavior (PLOS ONE)
• Drivers of Change in a 7300-Year Holocene Diatom Record from the Hemi-Boreal Region of Ontario, Canada (PLOS ONE)

News:

• Twenty-Five Little Bones Tell a Puzzling Story About Early Primate Evolution (Link)
• Here’s how to find D.C.’s accidental museum of paleontology (Link)
• Marsupial Lion Thylacoleo carnifex Had Unique Hunting Style, Paleontologists Say (Link)
• Burke Museum Paleontologists discover major T. rex fossil (Link)
• Supernova Ashes Found in Fossils Hint at Extinction Event (Link)
• Cretaceous fossils discovered in south China (Link)

Around the Blogosphere:

• Orthacanthus was a Cannibal (Link)
• Triceratops Against Concepts (Link)
• Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs (The Open Gate Library) (Link)
• Victorian Dinosaur Tracks of the ’80s (Link)
• Inside The Dinosaur Paleontology Renaissance In South Africa (Link)
• Humans and the Last Ice Age (Link) / Los Humanos y la Última Era de Hielo (Link)
• 3D Printing Opens Doors to Research – Jennifer Webb (Link)
• The Paleontology Of Fossil Butte National Monument Part One – Before There Was A Monument (Link)
• 7 Celebrity Fossils That Signify the Evolutionary Narrative of Humanity (Link)
• Exploring Canada’s Socialist Dinosaur Paradise (Link)

Do you have some news, a blog, or something just plain cool you want to share with the PLOS Paleo Community? Email it to us at paleocommunity@plos.org or tweet it to us at @PLOSPaleo.

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