Fossil Friday Roundup: February 9, 2018

Featured Image: Reconstruction of Tanystropheus. From Renesto and Saller (2017), CC-BY.

Papers (All Open Access):

• Cross-Scale Molecular Analysis of Chemical Heterogeneity in Shale Rocks (Scientific Reports)
• Testing optically stimulated luminescence dating on sand-sized quartz of deltaic deposits from the Sperchios delta plain, central Greece (Journal of Palaeogeography)
• Anomalous K-Pg–aged seafloor attributed to impact-induced mid-ocean ridge magmatism (Science Advances)
• Zircon data from coal beds across the Permian–Triassic boundary, eastern Yunnan, southwestern China (Journal of Palaeogeography)
• How oxygen gave rise to eukaryotic sex (ProcB)
• The last common ancestor of animals lacked the HIF pathway and respired in low-oxygen environments (eLife)
• Epidermal characters of Tamarix L. (Tamaricaceae) from Northwest China and their taxonomic and palaeogeographic implications (Journal of Palaeogeography)
• Constraining uncertainty in the timescale of angiosperm evolution and the veracity of a Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution (New Phytologist)
• Intergrowth of Orbignyella germana Bassler, 1911 (Bryozoa) and Lambelasma carinatum Weyer, 1993 (Rugosa) in the pelmatozoan-bryozoan-receptaculitid reefs from the Late Ordovician of Estonia (PalaeoE)
• Experimental tumbling of Dreissena polymorpha: implications for recognizing durophagous predation in the fossil record (Facies)
• Neurocranial anatomy of the petalichthyid placoderm Shearsbyaspis oepiki Young revealed by X-ray computed microtomography (Palaeontology)
• New data on psammosteid heterostracans (Pteraspidomorpha) and acanthodians (Acanthodii) from the Pärnu Regional Stage (Lower Eifelian, Middle Devonian) of Estonia (Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences)
• A new species of cyathaspid (Vertebrata: Pteraspidomorphi: Heterostraci) from the Lower Devonian Drake Bay Formation, Prince of Wales Island, Nunavut, Arctic Canada (Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences)
• New finds of fishes in the lower uppermost Famennian (Upper Devonian) of Сentral Russia and habitats of the Khovanshchinian vertebrate assemblages (Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences)
• Phanerozoic survivors: Actinopterygian evolution through the Permo-Triassic and Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction events (Evolution)
• Diversity change during the rise of tetrapods and the impact of the ‘Carboniferous rainforest collapse’ (ProcB)
• Evidence for a semi-aquatic lifestyle in the Triassic diapsid reptile Tanystropheus (Rivista Italiana de Palaeontologia e Stratigrafia)
• Macroevolutionary diversification with limited niche disparity in a species-rich lineage of cold-climate lizards (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
• How many species of mammals are there? (Journal of Mammalogy)
• A preliminary report of the fossil mammals from a new microvertebrate locality in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, Grand County, Utah (Geology of the Intermountain West)
• Deep time diversity of metatherian mammals: implications for evolutionary history and fossil-record quality (Paleobiology)
• Adaptive genomic evolution of opsins reveals that early mammals flourished in nocturnal environments (BMC Genomics)
• Differential responses of Miocene rodent metacommunities to global climatic changes were mediated by environmental context (Scientific Reports)
• Civettictis braini nov. sp. (Mammalia: Carnivora), a new viverrid from the hominin-bearing site of Kromdraai (Gauteng, South Africa) (Comptes Rendus Palevol)
• Recent inner ear specialization for high-speed hunting in cheetahs (Scientific Reports)
• Late Pleistocene vertebrate trace tossils in the Goukamma Nature Reserve, Cape South Coast, South Africa (Wired Space)
• Developments in development: What have we learned from primate locomotor ontogeny? (Physical Anthropology)
• The latest occurrence of the nyanzapithecines from the early Late Miocene Nakali Formation in Kenya, East Africa (Anthropological Science)
• A new species of Mioeuoticus (Lorisiformes, Primates) from the early Middle Miocene of Kenya (Anthropological Science)
• Global and local perspectives on cranial shape variation in Indonesian Homo erectus (Anthropological Science)
• Late Pleistocene hominin teeth from Laoya Cave, southern China (Anthropological Science)
• Upper incisor morphology of the Late Miocene hominoid Ouranopithecus macedoniensis from Axios Valley (Macedonia, Greece) (Anthropological Science)
• Model Adequacy and Microevolutionary Explanations for Stasis in the Fossil Record (The American Naturalist)

Pre-Prints and Post-Prints:

• The Strud crustacean fauna (Late Devonian, Belgium): updated review and palaeoecology
  of an early continental ecosystem (PaleorXiv)
• On the Probabilities of Branch Durations and Stratigraphic Gaps in Phylogenies of Fossil Taxa when Rates of Diversification Vary over Time (PaleorXiv)
• Paleozoic geomagnetism shapes vertebrate evolution (PeerJ)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources:

Meetings:

• Western Association of Vertebrate Paleontologists Annual Meeting, St. George, Utah, Feb. 16–18, 2018 (Link)
• Burpee PaleoFest, March 3-4, 2018 (Link)
• Lyell Meeting 2018: Mass extinctions – understanding the world’s worst crises (Link)
• Trekking Across the GOBE: From the Cambrian through the Katian, IGCP 653 Annual Meeting, June 3-7, 2018, Athens, Ohio, USA (Link)
• 5th International Palaeontological Congress (IPC5), July 9–13, 2018, France (Link)
• 78th Annual Meeting, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP), October 17–20, 2018, Albuquerque, New Mexico (Link)
• 2018 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, November 4–7, 2018, Indianapolis, Indiana (Link)
• North American Paleontological Convention June 23–27 2019 (Link)

Deadlines:

• Nominations For A Student Representative To Council, deadline February 21, 2018 (Paleo Society)
• Paleontological Society to Sponsor Summer Policy Intern at AGI, Application deadline March 1, 2018 (Paleo Society)
• The AWG Undergraduate Excellence in Paleontology Award, deadline April 15, 2018 (PaleoSociety)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy:

• Fossil Friday – ray tooth (Valley of the Mastodon)
• Child aids paleontologists in discovery of new ancient fish species (Link)
• Who Ate Those Seeds? Not Hongshanornis! (Raptormaniacs)
• How Mothers Stop Their Daughters from Sleeping Around (Synapsida)
• Fossil Bat Stories, Part 1 (Tetrapod Zoology)
• Cheetahs, Ears, and High-Speed Chases (Dr. Neurosaurus)
• Rare dinosaur discovery in Egypt could signal more finds (Link)

Museums, Methods, and Musings:

• The League of Saint Croix (Equatorial Minnesota)
• 13: Peer Review: Anonymity Versus Identification (III) (Green Tea and Velociraptors)
• Editing Science Chapters (Time Scavengers)
• Diving into the Ordovician Sea (Time Scavengers)
• Sharing your work on paleorXiv is now even easier (Green Tea and Velociraptors)
• Dinosaurs from the Moscow Museum of Paleontology! (Dave’s Dinosaurs)
• A discussion, not a war: two opposing experts talk dinosaur family trees (Link)

Art, books, culture, and fun:

• Sauroposeidon, the early years: my first drawing (SVPOW)
• I (SUE the T. rex) am moving to my own place and all y’all are invited. (The Field Museum)

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