Fossil Friday Roundup: April 6, 2018

Featured Image: webpic Images used to compare data collection methods. Specimens were collected from locality number TT92-3 (“Dori’s Tuff”). From Chang (2018).

Papers (All Open Access):

• Combined morphological and phylogenomic re-examination of malawimonads, a critical taxon for inferring the evolutionary history of eukaryotes (RSOS)
• Distribution modelling of pre-Columbian California grasslands with soil phytoliths: New insights for prehistoric grassland ecology and restoration (PLOS ONE)
• Reinvestigating an enigmatic Late Cretaceous monocot: morphology, taxonomy, and biogeography of Viracarpon (PeerJ)
• Positive biodiversity–productivity relationships in forests: climate matters (Biology Letters)
• New fossil genus and species of Sinoalidae (Hemiptera: Cercopoidea) from the Middle to Upper Jurassic deposits in northeastern China (European Journal of Entomology)
• DNA barcoding unravels contrasting evolutionary history of two widespread Asian tiger moth species during the Late Pleistocene (PLOS ONE)
• Unlocking preservation bias in the amber insect fossil record through experimental decay (PLOS ONE)
• Earliest ontogeny of early Cambrian acrotretoid brachiopods — first evidence for metamorphosis and its implications (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
• Revisión morfológica de las tortugas del género Notoemys (Paleontología Mexicana)
• Basilemys morrinensis, a new species of nanhsiungchelyid turtle from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation (Upper Cretaceous) of Alberta, Canada (JVP)
• A case study of developmental palaeontology in Stereosternum tumidum (Mesosauridae, Parareptilia) (Fossil Record)
• The Only Known Jawed Vertebrate with Four Eyes and the Bauplan of the Pineal Complex (Current Biology)
• Taxonomic reassessment of Clevosaurus latidens Fraser, 1993 (Lepidosauria, Rhynchocephalia) and rhynchocephalian phylogeny based on parsimony and Bayesian inference (Journal of Paleontology)
• Geographic variation in body size and its relationship with environmental gradients in the Oriental Garden Lizard, Calotes versicolor (Ecology and Evolution)
• Nanostructure, osteopontin, and mechanical properties of calcitic avian eggshell (Science Advances)
• Negligible effect of tooth reduction on body mass in Mesozoic birds (Vertebrata PalAsiatica)
• Correction: Correlative microscopy of the constituents of a dinosaur rib fossil and hosting mudstone: Implications on diagenesis and fossil preservation (PLOS ONE)
• Correction to ‘Estimating maximum bite performance in Tyrannosaurus rex using multi-body dynamics’ (Biology Letters)
• A walk in the maze: variation in Late Jurassic tridactyl dinosaur tracks from the Swiss Jura Mountains (NW Switzerland) (PeerJ)
• Genetic diversity and drivers of dwarfism in extinct island emu populations (Biology Letters)
• Spatial and temporal divergence of the torquatus species group of the subterranean rodent Ctenomys (Contributions to Zoology)
• Fossil Focus: Reimagining fossil cats (Palaeontology[Online])
• Neogene and Quaternary fossil remains of beaked whales (Cetacea, Odontoceti, Ziphiidae) from deep-sea deposits off Crozet and Kerguelen islands, Southern Ocean (Geodiversitas)
• Human bony labyrinth is an indicator of population history and dispersal from Africa (PNAS)
• The prevalence of terraced treescapes in analyses of phylogenetic data sets (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
• Including autapomorphies is important for paleontological tip-dating with clocklike data, but not with non-clock data (PeerJ)
• webpic: A flexible web application for collecting distance and count measurements from images (PLOS ONE)

Pre-Prints and Post-Prints:

• Research Infrastructures offer capacity to address scientific questions never attempted before: Are all taxa equal? (PeerJ)
• Diversity of raptor dinosaurs in southeastern North America revealed by the first definite record from North Carolina (PeerJ)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources:

Meetings:

• 11th Annual SeAVP Conference, May 23–27, 2018, North Carolina (Link)
• Trekking Across the GOBE: From the Cambrian through the Katian, IGCP 653 Annual Meeting, June 3-7, 2018, Athens, Ohio, USA (Link)
• European Association of Vertebrate Paleontologists Annual Meeting, Caprica, June 26–July 1, 2018 (Link)
• 5th International Palaeontological Congress (IPC5), July 9–13, 2018, France (Link)
• Flugsaurier 2018 Circular, August 10–14, 2018, Los Angeles (Link), Registration Deadline April 9
• 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:

• Raymond M. Alf Award for Excellence in Paleontological Research and Education, deadline April 13, 2018 (Alf Museum)
• The AWG Undergraduate Excellence in Paleontology Award, deadline April 15, 2018 (PaleoSociety)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy:

• Breakthrough in determining ages of different microbial groups (Link)
• Ancient sea worm eats, poops and leaves behind evidence of Cambrian biodiversity (Link)
• “Prorichthofenia”: brachiopod horn corals (Equatorial Minnesota)
• Paleo Profile: The Shortened Face (Laelaps)
• Introducing Tratayenia rosalesi (Letters from Gondwana)
• Fossil Friday – juvenile Tyrannosaurus (Valley of the Mastodon)
• First of the Flightless Penguins (Synapsida)
• Pigeons and Doves 101 (Tetrapod Zoology)
• Fossil Friday – camel elbow (Valley of the Mastodon)
• Paleo Profile: The Sobrarbe Siren (Laelaps)
• Episode 88: Bacula (Palaeocast)

Methods and Musings:

• Awarding grants by throwing dice (SVPOW)
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) I: Current Climate-Driven Impacts (Time Scavengers)
• The End of a Tradition (Raptormaniacs)
• The top 10 most popular SV-POW! posts (SVPOW)
• How to make an impact in science policy as a graduate student (PLOS ECR Community)
• Citations of lists – a small moan (Archosaur Musings)
• History and Value (Extinct)
• Faunal Interchanges, High School Students, and the Paleobiology Database (Project FOSSIL)
• A paleontologist who teaches anatomy is good for medicine and science (Link)

Museums, Folks and Fieldwork:

• Prehistoric Beast of the Week Visits the Canadian Museum of Nature (PBW)
• The mounted skeleton of Patagotitan at the AMNH (SVPOW)
• World class collections make a world class museum (Alf Museum)
• Museum Collection Visit Bingo (PLOS Paleo)
• A Day in the Life of John (What’s in John’s Freezer?)
• Holy, Toledo! Life-Sized Flying Reptiles at the Zoo! (Dave’s Dinosaurs)
• India’s paleontologists fight destruction of its fossil riches (Link)

Art, books, culture, and fun:

• Dinosaurs in the Wild — A review (Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs)
• National Fossil Day 2018: Art Contest Theme Announced “The Age of Reptiles—More than Just Dinosaurs” (PLOS Paleo)

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