Fossil Friday Roundup: October 21, 2016

Featured image: Reconstruction of a 100 million-year-old fish “with an incredibly swordfish-like head and monstrous teeth”, unearthed in Queensland. Image courtesy Patrick Smith.

Papers (all Open Access):

  • Freshwater Fossil Pearls from the Nihewan Basin, Early Early Pleistocene (PLOS ONE)
  • The first fossil salmonfly (Insecta: Plecoptera: Pteronarcyidae), back to the Middle Jurassic (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
  • A reappraisal of Theroteinus (Haramiyida, Mammaliaformes) from the Upper Triassic of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port (France) (PeerJ)
  • Impact ejecta at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary (Science)
  • Early cave art and ancient DNA record the origin of European bison (Nature Communications)
  • The cranial endocast of Dipnorhynchus sussmilchi (Sarcopterygii: Dipnoi) and the interrelationships of stem-group lungfishes (PeerJ)
  • A revision of Sanpasaurus yaoi Young, 1944 from the Early Jurassic of China, and its relevance to the early evolution of Sauropoda (Dinosauria) (PeerJ)
  • Taxonomy of Platypterygius campylodon and the diversity of the last ichthyosaurs (PeerJ)
  • Osteological assessment of Pleistocene Camelops hesternus (Camelidae, Camelinae, Camelini) from Alaska and Yukon. (American Museum novitates, no. 3866) (American Museum Novitates)
  • Comparative cranial morphology in living and extinct platypuses: Feeding behavior, electroreception, and loss of teeth (Science Advances)
  • Resolving the evolution of the mammalian middle ear using Bayesian inference (Frontiers in Zoology)
  • The influence of flight style on the aerodynamic properties of avian wings as fixed lifting surfaces (PeerJ)
  • Virtual reconstruction of the brain and sinuses of the early Jurassic marine crocodylomorph Pelagosaurus typus (Thalattosuchia) (PeerJ Preprint)
  • New Australian sauropods shed light on Cretaceous dinosaur palaeobiogeography (SciRep)

News:

  • NASA’s Bold Plan to Hunt for Fossils on Mars (Link)
  • Huge 13,000-year-old mastodon is found in a Michigan field two years after a few mystery bones were discovered by students (Link)
  • Wichita State professor leads team to uncover mammoth remains (Link)
  • ‘Extremely rare’ ancient swordfish fossils unearthed in outback Queensland (Link)
  • Unique skin impressions of last European dinosaurs discovered in Barcelona (Link)
  • First dinosaur bones found in Denali National Park (Link)
  • Ancient fish illuminates one mystery of childhood (Link)
  • University of Michigan team recovers ‘most complete Michigan mastodon skeleton in many decades’ from Thumb site (Link)
  • Birds in the Time of Dinosaurs (Link)

Events and Society Updates:

  • Going to SVP? Attend the PLOS Paleontology Community Social at Under Current Fish and Oyster Bar! October 27, 6–9 pm Sign up for the Event Here.
  • On Wednesday 10/19, we hosted a PLOS Paleo Reddit AMA with Israel Sanchez, one of the author’s of PLOS ONE paper describing Xenokeryx amidalae. Read the Transcript here!

Around the Blogosphere:


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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Published by Sarah Z. Gibson

Dr. Sarah Z. Gibson is a paleontologist and science communicator based in Minnesota. Her research focuses on the evolutionary history of ray-finned fishes from the Early Mesozoic. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6784-3980

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