Fossil Friday Roundup: October 27, 2017

Featured Image: Reconstruction of Sinosauropteryx. From Smithwick et al. (2017). CC-BY.

You can choose who deserves the honor of being among the Top 10 Open Access Fossil Taxa of 2017! Vote here!

Papers (All Open Access):

• Foraminifera biostratigraphy and paleoenvironment of Well 5, OML 34, Niger Delta, Nigeria (PalaeoE)
• Pteropoda (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Thecosomata) from the Eocene/Oligocene boundary interval of three cored boreholes in southern coastal Tanzania and their response to the global cooling event (PalaeoE)
• The earliest cornulitid on the internal surface of the illaenid pygidium from the Middle Ordovician of Estonia (EJEE)
• Prey preference follows phylogeny: evolutionary dietary patterns within the marine gastropod group Cladobranchia (Gastropoda: Heterobranchia: Nudibranchia) (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
• The comparison of molecular and morphology-based phylogenies of trichaline net-winged beetles (Coleoptera: Lycidae: Metriorrhynchini) with description of a new subgenus (PeerJ)
• Species–specific crab predation on the hydrozoan clinging jellyfish Gonionemus sp. (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa), subsequent crab mortality, and possible ecological consequences (PeerJ)
• Unravelling the ontogeny of a Devonian early gnathostome, the “acanthodian” Triazeugacanthus affinis (eastern Canada) (PeerJ)
• A new species of Saurichthys from the Middle Triassic (Anisian) of southwestern China (IVPP)
• Discovery of chemosynthesis-based association on the Cretaceous basal leatherback sea turtle from Japan (APP)
• Ancient divergence time estimates in Eutropis rugifera support the existence of Pleistocene barriers on the exposed Sunda Shelf (PeerJ)
• Discovery of the first ichthyosaur from the Jurassic of India: Implications for Gondwanan palaeobiogeography (PLOS ONE)
• Palaeobiology of red and white blood cell-like structures, collagen and cholesterol in an ichthyosaur bone (Scientific Reports)
• Multiple optimality criteria support Ornithoscelida (RSOS)
• The oldest record of Alvarezsauridae (Dinosauria: Theropoda) in the Northern Hemisphere (PLOS ONE)
• Cope’s rule and the adaptive landscape of dinosaur body size evolution (Palaeontology)
• Correlative microscopy of the constituents of a dinosaur rib fossil and hosting mudstone: Implications on diagenesis and fossil preservation (PLOS ONE)
• Countershading and Stripes in the Theropod Dinosaur Sinosauropteryx Reveal Heterogeneous Habitats in the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota (Current Biology)
• Extreme tooth enlargement in a new Late Cretaceous rhabdodontid dinosaur from Southern France (Scientific Reports)
• A Catalog of Zalmoxes (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) Specimens from the Upper Cretaceous Nălaţ-Vad Locality, Haţeg Basin, Romania (AMNH Novitates)
• The first megatheropod tracks from the Lower Jurassic upper Elliot Formation, Karoo Basin, Lesotho (PLOS ONE)
• On the lack of a universal pattern associated with mammalian domestication: differences in skull growth trajectories across phylogeny (RSOS)
• Overcoming sampling issues in dental tribology: Insights from an experimentation on sheep (PalaeoE)
• Body-size structure of Central Iberian mammal fauna reveals semidesertic conditions during the middle Miocene Global Cooling Event (PLOS ONE)
• Reassessing the environmental context of the Aitape Skull – The oldest tsunami victim in the world? (PLOS ONE)
• External auditory exostoses and hearing loss in the Shanidar 1 Neandertal (PLOS ONE)
• Early Levallois and the beginning of the Middle Paleolithic in central Italy (PLOS ONE)
• Self-domestication in Homo sapiens: Insights from comparative genomics (PLOS ONE)
• Correction: The lithic assemblages of Donggutuo, Nihewan basin: Knapping skills of Early Pleistocene hominins in North China (PLOS ONE)
• Inferring microevolution from museum collections and resampling: lessons learned from Cepaea (PeerJ)
• Estimating Age-dependent Extinction: Contrasting Evidence from Fossils and Phylogenies (SysBio)
• Energy retrofit of historic buildings in the Mediterranean area: the case of the Palaeontology Museum of Naples (Energy Procedia)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources:

• Vote for the Top 10 Taxa of 2017, deadline November 15 (PLOS Paleo)
• A history of life on Earth: A masterclass on evolution with experts from the Natural History Museum, November 19, 2017 (Link)
• The Science Ambassador Scholarship for female undergraduate and high school seniors, Deadline December 11, 2017 (Link)
• Trekking Across the GOBE: From the Cambrian through the Katian, IGCP 653 Annual Meeting, June 3-7, 2018, Athens, Ohio, USA (Link)
• North American Paleontological Convention June 23–27 2019 (Link)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy:

• World’s oldest and most complex trees (Link)
• Mongolian microfossils point to the rise of animals on Earth (Link)
• Sunday morning Decorah fossils (Equatorial Minnesota)
• Trilobites Had Guts (Laelaps)
• Mollusc-Munching Marine Monster: First Jurassic ichthyosaur found in India (PLOS Paleo)
• Paleo Profile: The Older One from Melksham (Laelaps)
• Meet the giant dinosaur that roamed southern Africa 200 million years ago (Earth Touch News)
• Presenting the New Ankylosaurus (Laelaps)
• Not so nasty: dinosaurs liked to snuggle up and socialise (Link)
• Fossil Friday – printed mastodon molar (Valley of the Mastodon)
• Endangered Mammals of the Caribbean (Synapsida)
• Conozcan a Olympicetus avitus, un nuevo odontoceto basal de la Formación Pysht del estado de Washington (Caribbean Paleobiology)

Museums, Methods, and Musings:

• Where can I study palaeo in Canada? – 150 things about Canadian palaeo, part 17 (Musings of a Clumsy Paleontologist)
• Late Triassic Terrestrial Ecosystem Changes (GSA)
• Brief history of the ocean acidification through time: an update (Letters from Gondwana)
• Valley of the Mastodons – final pictorial interlude (Mostly Mammoths)
• Valley of the Mastodons – Final post: Related articles (Mostly Mammoths)
• Stop the clocks (and other geologic timescale metaphors, too!) (Extinct)
• Episode 20 – The Scientific Method (Common Descent)
• From Discovery to Display: The Journey of the Castle River Hadrosaur (Inside the Royal Tyrrell Museum)
• Open Access Week 2017: It’s time to do something about predatory publishers (PLOS ECR)
• McClung Museum Temporary Exhibit on Echinoderms (Time Scavengers)
• How many cephalopod species are there in the UK? (Fistful of Cinctans)

Featured Folks and Fieldwork:

• The TetZooCon of 2017 (Tetrapod Zoology)
• TetZooCon 2017 (Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs)
• TetZooCon 2017 (Raptormaniacs)
• Andy Fraass (Time Scavengers)
• Hunting for dinosaurs at the bottom of the world (Link)

Art, books, culture, and fun:

• Hawkins’ St George and the, errr, ‘dragon’ (Archosaur Musings)

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, tweet it to us at @PLOSPaleo, or message us on Facebook