Fossil Friday Roundup: May 3, 2019

Featured Image: From Talori et al. (2019).

Papers (All Open Access):

• The end-Permian mass extinction (EPME) and the Early Triassic biotic recovery in the western Dolomites (Italy): state of the art (Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana)
• The Carnian Pluvial Episode in Italy: History of the research and perspectives (Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana)
• The Cretaceous/Palaeogene Boundary: Italian souvenirs for the youngest of the “Big Five” extinctions (Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana)
• The serendipitous discovery of an extraterrestrial iridium anomaly at the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary in Gubbio and the rise of a far-reaching theory (Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana)
• The Italian record of the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana)
• Living in a deep desiccated Mediterranean Sea: An overview of the Italian fossil record of the Messinian salinity crisis (Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana)
• Geology and Paleontology of the Late Miocene Wilson Grove Formation at Bloomfield Quarry, Sonoma County, California (USGS)
• Reassessment of historical sections from the Paleogene marine margin of the Congo Basin reveals an almost complete absence of Danian deposits (Geoscience Frontiers)
• Cryogenian magmatic activity and early life evolution (SciRep)
• Ancient Mammalian and Plant DNA from Late Quaternary Stalagmite Layers at Solkota Cave, Georgia (SciRep)
• Early Paleocene tropical forest from the Ojo Alamo Sandstone, San Juan Basin, New Mexico, USA (OSF)
• A pre‐Miocene Irano‐Turanian cradle: Origin and diversification of the species‐rich monocot genus Gagea (Liliaceae) (Ecology and Evolution)
• Amiskwia is a large Cambrian gnathiferan with complex gnathostomulid-like jaws (Communications Biology)
• Worldwide paleodistribution of capillariid parasites: Paleoparasitology, current status of phylogeny and taxonomic perspectives (PLOS ONE)
• Synoptic revision of the Silurian fauna from the Pentland Hills, Scotland described by Lamont (1978) (PalaeoE)
• Marine Cretaceous Organic-Walled Dinoflagellate Cysts From The Austral-Magallanes Basin (Latin American Journal of Sedimentology and Basin Analysis)
• Coral carbon isotope sensitivity to growth rate and water depth with paleo-sea level implications (Nature Comm)
• Adding a new dimension to investigations of early radiolarian evolution (SciRep)
• Consideration of species-specific diatom indicators of anthropogenic stress in the Great Lakes (PLOS ONE)
• Imaging the internal structure of Borelis schlumbergeri Reichel (1937): Advances by high-resolution hard X-ray microtomography (PalaeoE)
• Catalogue and composition of fossil Anthicidae and Ischaliidae (Insecta: Coleoptera) (PalaeoE)
• Exceptional preservation of mid-Cretaceous marine arthropods and the evolution of novel forms via heterochrony (Science Advances)
• Mosaic of plesiomorphic and derived characters in an Eocene myliobatiform batomorph (Chondrichthyes, Elasmobranchii) from Italy defines a new, basal body plan in pelagic stingrays (Zoological Letters)
• The pharynx of the stem-chondrichthyan Ptomacanthus and the early evolution of the gnathostome gill skeleton (Nature Comm)
• New insights into the evolution of temnospondyls (Journal of Iberian Geology)
• Anatomy of Rhinochelys pulchriceps (Protostegidae) and marine adaptation during the early evolution of chelonioids (PeerJ)
• Acherontiscus caledoniae: the earliest heterodont and durophagous tetrapod (RSOS)
• The first Triassic vertebrate fossils from Myanmar: Pachypleurosaurs in a marine limestone (APP)
• A prevalence of Arthropterygius (Ichthyosauria: Ophthalmosauridae) in the Late Jurassic—earliest Cretaceous of the Boreal Realm (PeerJ)
• Postcranial osteology of the neotype specimen of Massospondylus carinatus Owen, 1854 (Dinosauria: Sauropodomorpha) from the upper Elliot formation of South Africa (Paleontologica africana)
• Comment (Case 3506) – Support for USNM 4734 being designated as the neotype specimen of Allosaurus fragilis Marsh, 1877 (Dinosauria, Theropoda) (Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature)
• A Juvenile Cf. Edmontosaurus annectens (Ornithischia, Hadrosauridae) Femur Documents A Poorly Represented Growth Stage For This Taxon (VAMP)
• Morphological innovation and the evolution of hadrosaurid dinosaurs (Paleobiology)
• Identification of avian flapping motion from non-volant winged dinosaurs based on modal effective mass analysis (PLOS Computational Biology)
• A New Oogenus of Dendroolithidae from the Late Cretaceous in the Quyuangang Area, Henan Province, China (Acta Geologica Sinica)
• First occurrence of the dicynodont Digalodon (Therapsida, Anomodontia) from the Lopingian upper Madumabisa Mudstone Formation, Luangwa Basin, Zambia (Paleontological africana)
• Beyond guilds: the promise of continuous traits for mammalian functional diversity (Journal of Mammalogy)
• Patterns of mammalian jaw ecomorphological disparity during the Mesozoic/Cenozoic transition (ProcB)
• Biological variation in the sizes, shapes and locations of visual cortical areas in the mouse (PLOS ONE)
• Signatures of echolocation and dietary ecology in the adaptive evolution of skull shape in bats (Nature Comm)
• First Record of Hoplictis (Carnivora, Mustelidae) in East Asia from the Miocene of the Ulungur River Area, Xinjiang, Northwest China (Acta Geologica Sinica)
• Opsin genes of select treeshrews resolve ancestral character states within Scandentia (RSOS)
• A New Species Of Teleoceras (Mammalia, Rhinocerotidae) From The Late Hemphillian Of Tennessee (Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History)
• Taxonomic implications of morphometric analysis of earless seal limb bones (APP)
• A new beaked whale record from the upper Miocene of Menorca, Balearic Islands, based on CT-scan analysis of limestone slabs (APP)
• Like phoenix from the ashes: How modern baleen whales arose from a fossil “dark age” (APP)
• Rise of the titans: baleen whales became giants earlier than thought (Biology Letters)
• Yucatán carnivorans shed light on the Great American Biotic Interchange (Biology Letters)
• The African ape-like foot of Ardipithecus ramidus and its implications for the origin of bipedalism (eLife)
• Out of Africa by spontaneous migration waves (PLOS ONE)
• Alleles associated with physical activity levels are estimated to be older than anatomically modern humans (PLOS ONE)
• Did climate determine Late Pleistocene settlement dynamics in the Ach Valley, SW Germany? (PLOS ONE)
• Micro-computed tomography for natural history specimens: a handbook of best practice protocols (EJT)
• Text-mined fossil biodiversity dynamics using machine learning (ProcB)

Preprints/PostPrints:

• Broadening the scope of PLOS Biology: Short Reports and Methods & Resources (PLOS Biology)
• Reconstructing the ecology of a Jurassic pseudoplanktonic megaraft colony (bioRXiv)
• Integumentary structure and composition in an exceptionally well-preserved hadrosaur (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) (PeerJ)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources:

 Meetings:

• Mosasaur & Mesozoic Marine Reptiles Meeting (Tyrrell), May 3–6, 2019
• Canadian Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, Wembley, Alberta, May 10–13, 2019 (Link) (Abstracts)
• 11th Conference on Fossil Resources, Casper, Wyoming, May 30–June 2, 2019 (Link)
• North American Paleontological Convention June 23–27 2019 (Link)
• Judith River Symposium (Great Plains Dinosaur Museum), Malta, Montana, June 28–30 (Link)
• Cretaceous & Beyond: Paleo of Western Interior (Dickinson Museum), Dickinson, North Dakota, September 14–17 (Link)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy:

• Fossil Friday – fern (Valley of the Mastodon)
• The Croc That Ran on Hooves (PBS Eons)
• Ornithoscelida: What Now? (Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong Synapisode #4) (NSI)
• New Duckbill Dinosaur Looks Sharp (Laelaps)
• Chewing versus sex in the duck-billed dinosaurs (Link)
• What If the Asteroid Never Killed the Dinosaurs? (Gizmodo)
• Chasing Hobbits: A Year in Indonesia (Paige Madison)

Featured Folks, Fieldwork, and Museums:

• Blowing Rocks Nature Preserve (Time Scavengers)
• Forgotten Women Of Paleontology: Hildegarde Howard (Letters from Gondwana)

Methods and Musings:

• Who Is a Paleontologist, Really? (Laelaps)
• How we reported a controversial story about the day the dinosaurs died (Science News)
• What to Do with Scientific Disagreement (Extinct)
• The World Was a Much More Interesting Place Not That Long Ago: Best Paleoanthropology of 2018 (Paige Madison)
• All I Really Need to Know I Learned From Peer-Reviewed Papers (Part 2) (PLOS Ecology)
• This Mesozoic Month: April 2019 (LITC)

Arts, Books, Culture, Fun:

• Sea Monster Sightings and the ‘Plesiosaur Effect’ (TetZoo)
• The science of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, part 1: marine reptiles, Dicynondon and “labyrinthodons” (Mark Witton)

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.