Fossil Friday Roundup: August 9, 2019

Featured Image: Ngwevu intloko: a new early sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic Elliot Formation of South Africa. From Chapelle et al. (2019).

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Synchronizing volcanic, sedimentary, and ice core records of Earth’s last magnetic polarity reversal (Science Advances)
  • Pliocene warmth consistent with greenhouse gas forcing (Geophysical Research Letters)
  • Early animal evolution: a morphologist’s view (RSOS)
  • Three-dimensionally preserved soft tissues and calcareous hexactins in a Silurian sponge: implications for early sponge evolution (RSOS)
  • Lower Jurassic corals from Morocco with skeletal structures convergent with those of Paleozoic rugosan corals (PalaeoE)
  • The appendicular morphology of Sinoburius lunaris and the evolution of the artiopodan clade Xandarellida (Euarthropoda, early Cambrian) from South China (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
  • Beetle borings in wood with host response in early Permian conifers from Germany (PalZ)
  • Late Ordovician trilobites from the Taimyr Peninsula, Arctic Russia (Journal of Systematic Paleontology)
  • Histological evaluation of five suture materials in the telson ligament of the American horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) (PeerJ)
  • New species of Kromtitis Müller, 1984 (Decapoda: Brachyura: Dynomenidae) from the Eocene of Iberian Peninsula (PalaeoE)
  • A network of bivalve chronologies from semi-enclosed seas (PLOS ONE)
  • Anatomy and evolution of the first Coleoidea in the Carboniferous (Comm Biology)
  • Past aquatic environments in the Levant inferred from stable isotope compositions of carbonate and phosphate in fish teeth (PLOS ONE)
  • Dissorophid diversity at the early Permian cave system near Richards Spur, Oklahoma, USA (PalaeoE)
  • Permian metabolic bone disease revealed by microCT: Paget’s disease-like pathology in vertebrae of an early amniote (PeerJ)
  • Cranial ontogeny of Thamnophis radix (Serpentes: Colubroidea) with a re-evaluation of current paradigms of snake skull evolution (RSOS)
  • Palaeoepidemiology in extinct vertebrate populations: factors influencing skeletal health in Jurassic marine reptiles (RSOS)
  • Cretaceous Antarctic plesiosaurs: stratigraphy, systematics and paleobiogeography (Link)
  • Thyreophoran vertebrae from the Callovian (Middle Jurassic) of the Vaches Noires cliffs (Normandy, France), with remarks on the dinosaur assemblage from the Vaches Noires (Link)
  • Psittacosaurus amitabha, a new species of ceratopsian dinosaur from the Ondai Sayr locality, central Mongolia. (American Museum novitates)
  • Ngwevu intloko: a new early sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic Elliot Formation of South Africa and comments on cranial ontogeny in Massospondylus carinatus (PeerJ)
  • Evidence for a giant parrot from the Early Miocene of New Zealand (Biology Letters)
  • Complementary approaches to tooth wear analysis in Tritylodontidae (Synapsida, Mammaliamorpha) reveal a generalist diet (PLOS ONE)
  • First record of a basal mammaliamorph from the early Late Triassic Ischigualasto Formation of Argentina (PLOS ONE)
  • A Nearly Complete Juvenile Skull of the Marsupial Sparassocynus derivatus from the Pliocene of Argentina, the Affinities of “Sparassocynids”, and the Diversification of Opossums (Marsupialia; Didelphimorphia; Didelphidae) (Journal of Mammalian Evolution)
  • Five new species of Arvicolinae and Myospalacinae from the Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene of Nihewan Basin (Link)
  • A new kogiid sperm whale from northern Italy supports psychrospheric conditions in the early Pliocene Mediterranean Sea (APP)
  • Cave bear occupation in Schwabenreith Cave, Austria, during the early last glacial: constraints from 230Th/U‐dated speleothems (Link)
  • Causes and Consequences of Pleistocene Megafaunal Extinctions as Revealed from Rancho La Brea Mammals (Current Biology)
  • Ancient RNA from Late Pleistocene permafrost and historical canids shows tissue-specific transcriptome survival (PLOS ONE)
  • Mammal Biochronology (Land Mammal Ages) Around the World From Late Miocene to Middle Pleistocene and Major Events in Horse Evolutionary History (Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution)
  • Science–graphic art partnerships to increase research impact (Comm Biology)
  • Scientific Twitter: The flow of paleontological communication across a topic network (PLOS ONE)

PrePrints and PostPrints:

  • A ‘Giant Microfossil’ from the Gunflint Chert and its Implications for Eukaryote Origins (PaleorXiv)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources: 

 Meetings:

  • Cretaceous & Beyond: Paleo of Western Interior (Dickinson Museum), Dickinson, North Dakota, September 14–17 (Link)
  • Annual Meeting of the Paleontological Society (Paläontologische Gesellschaft), September 15–18, 2019, Munich (Link)

Society Announcements:

  • Geoscience Congressional Visits Day (Geo-CVD): Sept. 10-11, 2019 (Paleo Society)
  • The Paleontological Society is now accepting applications for two student members to participate in Geo-CVD 2019! (Paleo Society)
  • IGC Travel Grant and Mentoring Program 2020 (Paleo Society)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy, Fossils and Fossilization:

Featured Folks, Fieldwork, Museums, and Meetings:

  • The Great Female Scientists Of The Victorian Era (Letters From Gondwana)
  • Zoology Museum: Take 3 (What’s in John’s Freezer)
  • Paleontological Society/AGI Summer Intern Report, Part 2: Sophie Hanson (Paleo Society)
  • Field Museum’s Emily Graslie gets a national TV series: ‘Prehistoric Road Trip’ on PBS, produced in Chicago (Link)

Methods and Musings:

  • Why Does the U.S. Army Own So Many Fossils? (Atlas Obscura)
  • Applying to Grad School I: Paying for Your Graduate Degree (Time Scavengers)
  • The Future Geologist And The Anthropocene (Extinct)
  • Why we shouldn’t take peer review as the ‘gold standard’ (GTV)
  • True Grit: the PhD experience as a way of moving forward (PLOS ECR)
  • There are more and more options for non-exploitative publishers (SVPOW)
  • Vive la révolution! New ‘Science for Progress’ podcast (GTV)
  • This Mesozoic Month: July 2019 (LITC)
  • The Human Cost of Amber (Link)
  • Stardust Memories: Reading Evolution and Extinction in the Stars (Macroevolutionaries)
  • The First Year of Tetrapod Zoology Ver 4 (TetZoo)

Arts, Books, Culture, Fun:

  • Flesh To Stone To Flesh: The Tattoos Of Glendon Mellow (LITC)

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.

Fossil Friday Roundup: July 26, 2019

Featured Image: Seazzadactylus venieri, from Dalla Vecchia (2019).

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Aloisalthella, a new genus of fossil Polyphysacean green algae (Chlorophyta, Dasycladales), with notes on the genus Clypeina (Michelin, 1845) (PalaeoE)
  • An annotated catalogue of types of Silurian–Devonian brachiopod species from southern Belgium and northern France in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (1870–1945), with notes on those curated in other Belgian and foreign institutions (Geologica Belgica)
  • Which morphological characters are influential in a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis? Examples from the earliest osteichthyans (Biology Letters)
  • Body coloration and mechanisms of colour production in Archelosauria: the case of deirocheline turtles (RSOS)
  • Lizards possess the most complete tetrapod Hox gene repertoire despite pervasive structural changes in Hox clusters (Evolution and Development)
  • Moving beyond the surface: Comparative head and neck myology of threadsnakes (Epictinae, Leptotyphlopidae, Serpentes), with comments on the ‘scolecophidian’ muscular system (PLOS ONE)
  • Discovery of a deeply divergent new lineage of vine snake (Colubridae: Ahaetuliinae: Proahaetulla gen. nov.) from the southern Western Ghats of Peninsular India with a revised key for Ahaetuliinae (PLOS ONE)
  • Snake vertebrae fossils occurred from the Minatogawa Man site, southern part of Okinawajima Island, Ryukyu Archipelago, southwestern Japan (Link)
  • A revision of the diagnosis and affinities of the metriorhynchoids (Crocodylomorpha, Thalattosuchia) from the Rosso Ammonitico Veronese Formation (Jurassic of Italy) using specimen-level analyses (PeerJ)
  • A reassessment of the osteology of Mourasuchus amazonensis Price, 1964 with comments on the taxonomy of the species (PalaeoE)
  • Multiphase progenetic development shaped the brain of flying archosaurs (Scientific Reports)
  • Seazzadactylus venieri gen. et sp. nov., a new pterosaur (Diapsida: Pterosauria) from the Upper Triassic (Norian) of northeastern Italy (PeerJ)
  • Appendicular skeleton of Protoceratops andrewsi (Dinosauria, Ornithischia): comparative morphology, ontogenetic changes, and the implications for non-ceratopsid ceratopsian locomotion (PeerJ)
  • Comments on the ecology of Jurassic theropod dinosaur Ceratosaurus (Dinosauria: Theropoda) with critical reevaluation for supposed semiaquatic lifestyle (Volumina Jurassica)
  • An enigmatic theropod Cryolophosaurus: Reviews and comments on its paleobiology (Volumina Jurassica)
  • Evolution of avian egg shape: underlying mechanisms and the importance of taxonomic scale (Ibis)
  • Evidence against tetrapod-wide digit identities and for a limited frame shift in bird wings (Nat Comm)
  • Intraspecific variation and symmetry of the inner-ear labyrinth in a population of wild turkeys: implications for paleontological reconstructions (PeerJ)
  • Bayesian tip dating reveals heterogeneous morphological clocks in Mesozoic birds (Link)
  • The fossil record of birds from the James Ross Basin, West Antarctica (Link)
  • Complementary approaches to tooth wear analysis in Tritylodontidae (Synapsida, Mammaliamorpha) reveal a generalist diet (PLOS ONE)
  • New gobiconodontid (Eutriconodonta, Mammalia) from the Lower Cretaceous Shahai and Fuxin formations, Liaoning, China (Link)
  • Morphological Diversification under High Integration in a Hyper Diverse Mammal Clade (Link)
  • New specimen of Joumocetus shimizui from the Miocene Haraichi Formation, Annaka Group, Gunma Prefecture, Japan (Link)
  • Borealodon osedax, a new stem mysticete (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the Oligocene of Washington State and its implications for fossil whale-fall communities (RSOS)
  • Fossil Tiger from Limestone Mine of Tsukumi City, Oita Prefecture, Kyushu Island, Japan (Link)
  • Rare dental trait provides morphological evidence of archaic introgression in Asian fossil record (PNAS)
  • Mesolithic projectile variability along the southern North Sea basin (NW Europe): Hunter-gatherer responses to repeated climate change at the beginning of the Holocen (PLOS ONE)
  • Linking late Paleoindian stone tool technologies and populations in North, Central and South America (PLOS ONE)
  • Rapid response to anthropogenic climate change by Thuja occidentalis: implications for past climate reconstructions and future climate predictions (PeerJ)

Pre-Prints and Post-Prints:

  • First nuclear genome assembly of an extinct moa species, the little bush moa (Anomalopteryx didiformis) (biorXiv)
  • Paleobiogeography of Cretaceous South American Mesoeucrocodylia and your Contribution to the Knowledege of Biogeographical History of Gondwana and Laurasia (PaleorXiv)
  • What do ossification sequences tell us about the origin of extant amphibians? (bioRXiv)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources: 

 Meetings:

  • Cretaceous & Beyond: Paleo of Western Interior (Dickinson Museum), Dickinson, North Dakota, September 14–17 (Link)
  • Annual Meeting of the Paleontological Society (Paläontologische Gesellschaft), September 15–18, 2019, Munich (Link)

Society Announcements:

  • Geoscience Congressional Visits Day (Geo-CVD): Sept. 10-11, 2019 (Paleo Society)
  • The Paleontological Society is now accepting applications for two student members to participate in Geo-CVD 2019! (Paleo Society)
  • IGC Travel Grant and Mentoring Program 2020 (Paleo Society)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy, Fossils and Fossilization:

  • One-toed Brazilian dinosaur dashed across ancient deserts (PLOS Paleo)
  • Fossil Friday – ceratopsid ilium (Valley of the Mastodon)
  • Your Friends The Titanosaurs, part 14: Kaijutitan, Karongasaurus, and Laplatasaurus (Equatorial Minnesota)
  • Dinosaurs of a Feather Nested Together (Laelaps)
  • Scotland’s First Jurassic Mammal – our paper is out! (Giant Science Lady)
  • When sensory nerves from the thigh end up in the feet (SVPOW)

Featured Folks, Fieldwork, Museums, and Meetings:

  • Paleontologists using 100-year-old notes to relocate fossil quarries (Link)
  • How to find dinosaur fossils (Link)

Methods and Musings:

  • Building a Research Poster (Time Scavengers)
  • Spreading the Word: PLOS Advances Research Through Media Partnerships (PLOS ECR)
  • Good Collections Practice is a Shared Responsibility (Link)

Arts, Books, Culture, Fun:

  • The science of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, part 4: The mammals of the Tertiary Island (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.

Fossil Friday Roundup: July 19, 2019

Featured Image: Odontochelys semitestacea, from Schoch et al. (2019).

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Crustose lichens with lichenicolous fungi from Paleogene amber (SciRep)
  • Ricciopsis sandaolingensis sp. nov., a new fossil bryophyte from the Middle Jurassic Xishanyao Formation in the Turpan-Hami Basin, Xinjiang, Northwest China (PalaeoE)
  • Frond morphology and epidermal anatomy of Compsopteris wongii (T. Halle) Zalessky from the Permian of Shanxi, China (PalZ)
  • Marine and non-marine strata preserving Ediacaran microfossils (SciRep)
  • Early Cambrian Small Shelly Fossils from northwest Mexico: Biostratigraphic implications for Laurentia (PalaeoE)
  • Early Tithonian deep-water colonization by benthic foraminifera in the Magura Basin (Pieniny Klippen Belt, Western Carpathians): a clue to the origins of deep-water foraminifera (RIPS)
  • Holocene environment changes in the Hachichina Wetland (Gulf of Gabes, Tunisia) evidenced by Foraminifera and Ostracoda, geochemical proxies and sedimentological analyses (RIPS)
  • Some microfossils (Dasycladales, benthic foraminifera, sponges) from the Upper Jurassic Mozduran Formation (NE Iran, Kopet-Dagh) and their biostratigraphic and palaeobiogeographic importance (RIPS)
  • An effaced horseshoe crab (Arthropoda: Chelicerata: Xiphosura) from the Upper Carboniferous of the Carnic Alps (Friuli, NE Italy) (RIPS)
  • New fossil cylindrical bark beetle (Zopheridae: Colydiinae: Gempylodini) from Eocene Baltic amber: An abnormal or intermediate form within Tenebrionoidea (PalaeoE)
  • Paleogeographic northeastern limits of Aphrodina dutrugei (Cocquand, 1862) (Heterodonta,
    Bivalvia) from the Cenomanian of the Arabian Platform (RIPS)
  • Ammonites of the subfamily Zapaliinae from the Lower Tithonian of Estancia María Juana, Vaca Muerta Formation (Portada Covunco Member), Neuquén Basin, Argentina (RIPS)
  • The squamation of “Ctenacanthus” costellatus (Chondrichthyes: Ctenacanthiformes) from the Carboniferous of Lublin area, south-eastern Poland (Acta Geologica Polonica)
  • Lanternfish otoliths (Teleostei, Myctophidae) from the Pliocene and Pleistocene of Japan (RIPS)
  • New fossil cichlid from the middle Miocene of East Africa revealed as oldest known member of the Oreochromini (SciRep)
  • A coelacanth fish from the Anisian (Middle Triassic) of the Dolomites (RIPS)
  • Microanatomy of the stem-turtle Pappochelys rosinae indicates a predominantly fossorial mode of life and clarifies early steps in the evolution of the shell (SciRep)
  • First record of a leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelyidae) from the Mio-Pliocene Purisima Formation of northern California, USA (PaleoBios)
  • Testing for a facultative locomotor mode in the acquisition of archosaur bipedality (RSOS)
  • Influence of head morphology and natural postures on sound localization cues in crocodilians (RSOS)
  • An unusual ‘shovel-billed’ dinosaur with trophic specializations from the early Campanian of Trans-Pecos Texas, and the ancestral hadrosaurian crest (J Sys Paleo)
  • Nestling-sized hadrosaurine cranial material from the Hell Creek Formation of northeastern Montana, USA, with an analysis of cranial ontogeny in Edmontosaurus annectens (PaleoBios)
  • New skull remains of Phorusrhacos longissimus (Aves, Cariamiformes) from the Miocene of Argentina: implications for the morphology of Phorusrhacidae (J Paleontology)
  • A small, narrow‐beaked albatross from the Pliocene of New Zealand demonstrates a higher past diversity in the feeding ecology of the Diomedeidae (IBIS)
  • Congruence, fossils and the evolutionary tree of rodents and lagomorphs (RSOS)
  • Large mammal remains from the Early Pleistocene site of Podere San Lorenzo (Perugia, central Italy) (RIPS)
  • The Geology of the Middle Cam Valley, Cambridgeshire, UK (Quaternary)

Pre-Prints and Post-Prints:

  • The Morrison Formation sauropod consensus: A freely accessible online spreadsheet of collected sauropod specimens, their housing institutions, contents, references, localities, and other potentially useful information (PaleorXiv)
  • Mineral deposit fields of rare metals as a sources of data for bioindication, paleobioindication, paleonutriology and paleometallomics (PaleorXiv)
  • Discussions about creation of new paleontological journals for Citizen Science (community science / crowd science / civic science) on the forum of the Paleontological Institute (FASO), Part 1 (PaleorXiv)
  • Discussions about creation of new paleontological journals for Citizen Science (community science / crowd science / civic science) on the forum of the Paleontological Institute (FASO), Part 2 (PaleorXiv)
  • High-density morphometric analysis of shape and integration: the good, the bad, and the not-really-a-problem (ICB)
  • A practical guide to sliding and surface semilandmarks in morphometric analyses (IOB)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources: 

 Meetings:

  • Cretaceous & Beyond: Paleo of Western Interior (Dickinson Museum), Dickinson, North Dakota, September 14–17 (Link)
  • Annual Meeting of the Paleontological Society (Paläontologische Gesellschaft), September 15–18, 2019, Munich (Link)

Society Announcements:

  • Geoscience Congressional Visits Day (Geo-CVD): Sept. 10-11, 2019 (Paleo Society)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy, Fossils and Fossilization:

Featured Folks, Fieldwork, Museums, and Meetings:

  • Paleontological Society/AGI Summer Intern Report: Sophie Hanson (Paleo Society)
  • Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (Time Scavengers)
  • Robert Ulrich, Biogeochemist (Time Scavengers)
  • Table of old and new BYU specimen numbers (SVPOW)

Methods and Musings:

  • Looking Closer at Look at Your Fish (PLOS Ecology)
  • Don’t touch the casts! Touch the bones! (SVPOW)
  • Tips on a smooth Ph.D. – Postdoc transition; avoiding the post-graduation blues (PLOS ECR)
  • Episode 65 – The Late Devonian Extinction(s) (Common Descent)
  • Five Famous Palaeolithic Rock Art Enigmas (TetZoo)
  • How Volcanoes Froze the Earth (Twice) (PBS Eons)

Arts, Books, Culture, Fun:

  • Book review – Life Finds a Way: What Evolution Teaches Us About Creativity (The Inquisitive Biologist)
  • The Big One: Christoph Hoppenbrock’s Massive Palaeoart (LITC)
  • Book review – Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk (Second Edition) (The Inquisitive Biologist)

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.

Fossil Friday Roundup: July 12, 2019

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

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Revisiting metazoan phylogeny with genomic sampling of all phyla (Link)
  • First cycad seedling foliage from the fossil record and inferences for the Cenozoic evolution of cycads (Biology Letters)
  • An Evolutionarily Ancient Immune System Governs the Interactions between Pseudomonas syringae and an Early-Diverging Land Plant Lineage (Current Biology)
  • Conserved Biochemical Defenses Underpin Host Responses to Oomycete Infection in an Early-Divergent Land Plant Lineage (Current Biology)
  • Evolution of the Chordate Telencephalon (Current Biology)
  • New information on the feeding habits of the percomorph Rhenanoperca minuta, together with a short look at other fish species from the Eocene Messel Formation of Germany (Link)
  • Correction: Dynamic Similarity in Titanosaur Sauropods: Ichnological Evidence from the Fumanya Dinosaur Tracksite (Southern Pyrenees) (PLOS ONE)
  • Microraptor with Ingested Lizard Suggests Non-specialized Digestive Function (Current Biology)
  • A new paravian dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of North America supports a late acquisition of avian flight (PeerJ)
  • An avian femur from the Late Cretaceous of Vega Island, Antarctic Peninsula: removing the record of cursorial landbirds from the Mesozoic of Antarctica (PeerJ)
  • A New Enantiornithine Bird with Unusual Pedal Proportions Found in Amber (Current Biology)
  • Phylogenetic Signal of Indels and the Neoavian Radiation (Diversity)
  • Demography of avian scavengers after Pleistocene megafaunal extinction (SciRep)
  • New Material of Paleocene-Eocene Pellornis (Aves: Gruiformes) Clarifies the Pattern and Timing of the Extant Gruiform Radiation (Diversity)
  • A Phylogenomic Supertree of Birds (Diversity)
  • Los restos de Sus scrofa (Artiodactyla, Mammalia) del yacimiento Pleistoceno de Pinilla del Valle (Madrid, España) (Link)
  • Rare dental trait provides morphological evidence of archaic introgression in Asian fossil record (PNAS)
  • The bulb retouchers in the Levant: New insights into Middle Palaeolithic retouching techniques and mobile tool-kit composition (PLOS ONE)

Pre-Prints and Post-Prints:

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources: 

 Meetings:

  • Dino Fest at the Science Museum of Minnesota, July 13, 10 am–4 pm (Link)
  • Cretaceous & Beyond: Paleo of Western Interior (Dickinson Museum), Dickinson, North Dakota, September 14–17 (Link)
  • Annual Meeting of the Paleontological Society (Paläontologische Gesellschaft), September 15–18, 2019, Munich (Link)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy, Fossils and Fossilization:

  • Supersaurus, Ultrasaurus and Dystylosaurus in 2019, part 7: at last, Dystylosaurus has its day! (SVPOW)
  • Supersaurus, Ultrasaurus and Dystylosaurus in 2019, part 8: we finally get to Ultrasauros! (SVPOW)
  • Bonus post: Supersaurus before Ultrasaurus! (SVPOW)
  • Discovery of Raptor-Like Dinosaur Adds a New Wrinkle to the Origin of Birds (Smithsonian)
  • Hesperornithoides miessleriis and the evolution of flight (Letters from Gondwana)
  • Meet Lori, a tiny dinosaur that may help explain how birds evolved flight (Nat Geo)
  • Down, Down, Deeper and Down (Synapsida)
  • Sloths Climb a New Evolutionary Tree (Laelaps)
  • When we met other human species (PBS Eons)

Featured Folks, Fieldwork, and Museums:

  • Richard Howard, PeerJ Award winner at ProgPal, discusses his research on Ecdysozoans, evolution and biodiversity (PeerJ)
  • Queer voices in palaeontology (Nature)

Methods and Musings:

Arts, Books, Culture, Fun:

  • Big Mike’s Mosasaur (Dave’s Dinosaurs)
  • Cabinet of curiosities: Jessie Atterholt’s office (SVPOW)
  • James Herrmann’s dinosaur sculptures for the Cincinnati Museum Center (SVPOW)

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.

Fossil Friday* Roundup: July 6, 2019

*Saturday edition

Featured Image: Right lateral view of the Cioclovina calvaria exhibiting a large depressed fracture. From Kranioti et al. (2019).

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Accelerated diversifications in three diverse families of morphologically complex lichen-forming fungi link to major historical events (SciRep)
  • Preliminary investigation of a diverse megafossil floral assemblage from the middle Miocene of southern Mississippi, USA (PalaeoE)
  • Quantifying intra- and interspecific variability in trilobite moulting behaviour across the Palaeozoic (PalaeoE)
  • Reaching across the ocean of time: A midge morphotype from the Cretaceous of Gondwana found in the Eocene Baltic amber (PalaeoE)
  • Remarkable new fossil species of Schistostoma Becker (Diptera: Dolichopodidae: Microphorinae) from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber (Zootaxa)
  • Systematic notes on the Cerambycidae (Insecta: Coleoptera) described from Burmese amber (Link)
  • A new dustywing (Neuroptera: Coniopterygidae) from the Early Cretaceous amber of Spain (Link)
  • Patterns of richness of freshwater mollusks from Chile: predictions of its distribution based on null models (PeerJ)
  • Oriented microwear on a tooth of Edestus minor (Chondrichthyes, Eugeneodontiformes):
    Implications for dental function (PalaeoE)
  • Micro-computed tomography imaging reveals the development of a unique tooth mineralization pattern in mackerel sharks (Chondrichthyes; Lamniformes) in deep time (Link)
  • Ecomorphological diversification in squamates from conserved pattern of cranial integration (Link)
  • Reappraisal of the morphology and phylogenetic relationships of the alligatoroid crocodylian Diplocynodon hantoniensis from the late Eocene of the United Kingdom (Link)
  • Marine reptiles and climates of the Jurassic and Cretaceous of Siberia (Link)
  • Osteohistology of the silesaurid Sacisaurus agudoensis from southern Brazil (Late Triassic) and implications for growth in early dinosaurs (Link)
  • First Record of Sauropod Remains from the Maastrichtian Marília Formation (Bauru Group) of Monte Alegre de Minas since Friderich von Huene ́s Description in 1931 (Link)
  • A research of the Late Cretaceous dinosaur fauna in Tianyuan, Zhuzhou and measures proposed for their protection and utilization (Link)
  • Cretaceous dinosaur tracks from Maling Mountain of Xinyi City, Jiangsu Province:From tiger to carnivorous dinosaur and from folklore to paleontology (Link)
  • Spinosaurid theropod teeth from the Red Beds of the Khok Kruat Formation (Early Cretaceous) in Northeastern Thailand (Link)
  • Theropod teeth from the Lower Cretaceous Ilek Formation of Western Siberia, Russia (Link)
  • A Problematic Tyrannosaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) Skeleton and Its Implications for Tyrannosaurid Diversity in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation (Upper Cretaceous) of Alberta (Link)
  • Skeletal completeness of the non‐avian theropod dinosaur fossil record (Palaeontology)
  • A femur of the Late Cretaceous giant bird Gargantuavis from Cruzy (southern France) and its systematic implications (Link)
  • Early evidence of molariform hypsodonty in a Triassic stem-mammal (Link)
  • Seasonal denning behavior and population dynamics of the late Pleistocene peccary Platygonus compressus (Artiodactyla: Tayassuidae) from Bat Cave, Missouri (PeerJ)
  • State of the art forensic techniques reveal evidence of interpersonal violence ca. 30,000 years ago (PLOS ONE)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources: 

 Meetings:

  • Dino Fest at the Science Museum of Minnesota, July 13, 10 am–4 pm (Link)
  • Cretaceous & Beyond: Paleo of Western Interior (Dickinson Museum), Dickinson, North Dakota, September 14–17 (Link)
  • Annual Meeting of the Paleontological Society (Paläontologische Gesellschaft), September 15–18, 2019, Munich (Link)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy, Fossils and Fossilization:

  • Supersaurus, Ultrasaurus and Dystylosaurus in 2019, part 6: what happens to Supersaurus now? (SVPOW)
  • Vespersaurus: Beast of the Week (PBW)
  • This desert-dwelling dinosaur balanced on single toes (Link)
  • Episode 101: Organic Preservation of Dinosaur Bone (Paleocast)
  • Fossilized Dino Bones Are Home to Diverse Microbial Communities (Link)
  • New Research Upends Relationships Among Sloth Species (Link)
  • Fossil Friday – traces on a mammoth rib (Valley of the Mastodon)

Featured Folks, Fieldwork, and Museums:

  • Welcoming Visitors to Our New Stomping Grounds (Royal Tyrrell Museum)
  • Southeastern Geological Society of America Meeting (Time Scavengers)
  • Darwin’s Worst Nightmare Part III: Conclusion of a Colossal Coincidence (Paige Madison)
  • America’s First Paleontologist Hand-Wrote The Declaration Of Independence (Link)
  • The Experts Behind the New Fossil Hall Wrap Their Minds Around ‘Deep Time’ (Link)

Methods and Musings:

  • 21 years of The Reptipage (Reptipage)
  • You’ve completed your review – now get credit with ORCID (PLOS ECR)
  • Place, Place Baby (Extinct)

Arts, Books, Culture, Fun:

  • Reconstructing Hadrosaurus for the Academy of Natural Sciences (PBW)
  • Eyewitness Guides: Dinosaur – 30 years on (part 2) (LITC)
  • Monsterising prehistory! The “how”, “why” and “so what” of monstrous palaeoart (Mark Witton)
  • Mark Witton’s The Palaeoartist’s Handbook (TetZoo)

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.

Fossil Friday Roundup: June 28, 2019

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

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Nonequilibrium evolution of volatility in origination and extinction explains fat-tailed fluctuations in Phanerozoic biodiversity (Science Advances)
  • Biodiversity, Disparity and Evolvability (Link)
  • Mediterranean Geoscience Reviews: a Mediterranean perspective to geosciences (MGR)
  • Experimental evidence for species-dependent responses in leaf shape to temperature: Implications for paleoclimate inference (PLOS ONE)
  • A novel approach for the metric analysis of fern fronds: Growth and architecture of the Mesozoic fern Weichselia reticulata in the light of modern ferns (PLOS ONE)
  • Scaling laws explain foraminiferal pore patterns (SciRep)
  • Bottom-water deoxygenation at the Peruvian Margin during the last deglaciation recorded by benthic foraminifera (Biogeosciences Discuss)
  • The first fossil Discolomatidae (Coleoptera) from Hispaniola (PalZ)
  • A new calmanostracan crustacean species from the Cretaceous Yixian Formation and a simple approach for differentiating fossil tadpole shrimps and their relatives (Zoological Letters)
  • Revision of the Early Devonian psammosteids from the “Placoderm Sandstone”: Implications for their body shape reconstruction (PalaeoE)
  • The antiarch fish Asterolepis orcadensis from the Scottish Middle Devonian (PalaeoE)
  • Late Eocene (Priabonian) elasmobranchs from the Dry Branch Formation (Barnwell Group) of Aiken County, South Carolina, USA (PaleoBios)
  • Osteology and phylogeny of Robustichthys luopingensis, the largest holostean fish in the Middle Triassic (PeerJ)
  • A new species of dercetid (Teleostei, Aulopiformes) from the type Maastrichtian of southern Limburg, the Netherlands (NJG)
  • A detailed morphological measurement of the seventh specimen of the Indonesian coelacanth,
    Latimeria menadoensis, with a compilation of current morphological data of the species (Link)
  • Phylogeny and evolutionary history of mawsoniid coelacanths (Link)
  • Common themes in tetrapod appendage regeneration: a cellular perspective (EvoDevo)
  • Summary of Taxonomic Diversity and Geographic Distribution of Early Cretaceous Turtles of China (Acta Geologica Sinica)
  • Fossil dipsadid snakes from the Guadeloupe Islands (French West-Indies) and their interactions with past human populations (Geodiversitas)
  • A Paleobiogeographic Problem of the Late Paleozoic Tetrapods in East Eurasia (Acta Geologica Sinica)
  • The Identification of the Tapejarid Dorsal Vertebrate Number and its Implications for the Evolution of the Tapejaridae (Acta Geologica Sinica)
  • New plesiosaurid material from the Maastrichtian type area, the Netherlands (NJG)
  • Marine reptiles and climates of the Jurassic and Cretaceous of Siberia (Link)
  • Repeated Evolution of Herbivorous Crocodyliforms during the Age of Dinosaurs (Current Biology)
  • New Material of Sinopterus (Pterosauria, Tapejaridae) from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota of China (AABC)
  • Theropod teeth from the Lower Cretaceous Ilek Formation of Western Siberia, Russia (PZI)
  • Automatic generation of objective footprint outlines (PeerJ)
  • A new desert-dwelling dinosaur (Theropoda, Noasaurinae) from the Cretaceous of south Brazil (SciRep)
  • A new mormoopid bat from the Oligocene (Whitneyan and early Arikareean) of Florida, and phylogenetic relationships of the major clades of Mormoopidae (Mammalia, Chiroptera). (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History)
  • Establishing a neotype for Crocidura obtusa Kretzoi, 1938 (Mammalia, Soricidae): an emended description of this Pleistocene white-toothed shrew species (PalZ)
  • Mammal tooth traces in a ferruginous cave in southeastern Brazil and their relevance to cave legal protection (AABC)
  • Evidence of strong stabilizing effects on the evolution of boreoeutherian (Mammalia) dental proportions (Ecology and Evolution)
  • Eocene Antarctica: a window into the earliest history of modern whales (APS)
  • Brain evolution in Proboscidea (Mammalia, Afrotheria) across the Cenozoic (SciRep)
  • Large mammal fauna of the West Siberian forest-tundra zone in the late Holocene (Russian Journal of Theriology)
  • Assessing the Causes Behind the Late Quaternary Extinction of Horses in South America Using Species Distribution Models (Frontier in Ecology and Evolution)
  • Morphometric analysis of fossil hylobatid molars from the Pleistocene of southern China (Anthropological Sciences)
  • Relevance of the eastern African coastal forest for early hominin biogeography (Journal of Human Evolution)
  • Habitat suitability and the genetic structure of human populations during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in Western Europe (PLOS ONE)
  • A giant early Pleistocene bird from eastern Europe: unexpected component of terrestrial faunas at the time of early Homo arrival (JVP)
  • Nuclear DNA from two early Neandertals reveals 80,000 years of genetic continuity in Europe (Link)
  • Persistent Neanderthal occupation of the open-air site of ‘Ein Qashish, Israel (PLOS ONE)
  • Buffon, Jefferson and the theory of New World degeneracy (Evolution Education and Outreach)
  • Main lady of russian paleontology. To the 165th anniversary of the honorary academician Maria V. Pavlova (Link)

Preprints and Postprints:

  • Cambrian Chordates and Vetulicolians (PaleorXiv)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources: 

 Meetings:

  • Judith River Symposium (Great Plains Dinosaur Museum), Malta, Montana, June 28–30 (Link)
  • Dino Fest at the Science Museum of Minnesota, July 13, 10 am–4 pm (Link)
  • Cretaceous & Beyond: Paleo of Western Interior (Dickinson Museum), Dickinson, North Dakota, September 14–17 (Link)
  • Annual Meeting of the Paleontological Society (Paläontologische Gesellschaft), September 15–18, 2019, Munich (Link)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy, Fossils and Fossilization:

  • The Mysterious Swimming Habits Of The Ancient Ammonite (Science Friday)
  • Alanqa: Beast of the Week (PBW)
  • Supersaurus, Ultrasaurus and Dystylosaurus in 2019, part 4: what is the holotype of Supersaurus? (SVPOW)
  • Supersaurus, Ultrasaurus and Dystylosaurus in 2019, part 5: what actually is Supersaurus? (SVPOW)
  • Your Friends The Titanosaurs, part 13: Isisaurus, Jainosaurus, and Jiangshanosaurus (Equatorial Minnesota)
  • Opal, Ornithopods, and Australia (Dr. Neurosaurus)
  • Tyrannosaurus, a social creature? (Link)
  • What Fossils Reveal About T. rex Hunting Habits (Link)
  • A Strange Dinosaur’s Unusual Strut (Laelaps)
  • Blue colour tones in fossilised prehistoric feathers (Link)
  • What’s the Deal with Enantiornithean Tails? (Raptormaniacs)
  • Book review – The Tales Teeth Tell: Development, Evolution, Behavior (The Inquisitive Biologist)

Featured Folks, Fieldwork, and Museums:

  • Liam Elward: Of Proboscideans and Paleo Memes (LITC)
  • Darwin’s Worst Nightmare Part II: I Will Do Anything (Paige Madison)
  • Going viral: Local paleontologist uses social media to inspire, reveal history (Link)
  • Garden Park Fossil Area (Atlas Obscura)
  • Making tracks: Walking in the footsteps of New England dinosaurs (Link)

Methods and Musings:

  • Here’s what I mean about bone colour in photos being misleading (SVPOW)
  • More on varying colours of bones (SVPOW)
  • Plankton Photo Shoot Part II: Creating the Perfect Image (Time Scavengers)
  • Studying Paleontology Communities on Social Media (Time Scavengers)
  • New podcast: Dinosaur explosion! (GTV)

Arts, Books, Culture, Fun:

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.

Fossil Friday Roundup: June 21, 2019

Featured Image: Isisfordia molnari sp. nov., a new basal eusuchian from the mid-Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, Australia From Hart et al. 2019.

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Microbially induced potassium enrichment in Paleoproterozoic shales and implications for reverse weathering on early Earth (Nature Communications)
  • A tectonically driven Ediacaran oxygenation event (Nature Communications)
  • A Continuous Palynological Record of Forest Clearing at Rano Kao (Easter Island, SE Pacific) During the Last Millennium: Preliminary Report (Quaternary)
  • Late Pleistocene speciation of three closely related tree peonies endemic to the Qinling–Daba Mountains, a major glacial refugium in Central China (Ecology and Evolution)
  • Experimental evidence for species-dependent responses in leaf shape to temperature: Implications for paleoclimate inference (PLOS ONE)
  • Quantifying intra- and interspecific variability in trilobite moulting behaviour across the Palaeozoic (PalaeoE)
  • First report of paired ventral endites in a hurdiid radiodont (Zoological Letters)
  • The Phylogeny and Evolutionary History of Arthropods (Current Biology)
  • Evolution of limb development in cephalopod mollusks (eLife)
  • Description and classification of bivalve mollusks hemocytes: a computational approach (PeerJ)
  • Nature and timing of biotic recovery in Antarctic benthic marine ecosystems following the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction (Palaeontology)
  • Pleistocene epilithic foraminifera from the Arctic Ocean (PeerJ)
  • New material of thelodonts from Lochkovian (Lower Devonian) of Qujing, Yunnan, China (Vertebrata PalAsiatica)
  • A new genus and species of pycnodontid fish Flagellipinna rhomboides, gen. et sp. nov. (Neopterygii, Pycnodontiformes), from the Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian) of Lebanon, with notes on juvenile form and ecology (JVP)
  • Reconstructing reef fish communities using fish otoliths in coral reef sediments (PLOS ONE)
  • The African Aptian Francemys gadoufaouaensis gen. et sp. nov.: new data on the early diversification of Pelomedusoides (Testudines, Pleurodira) in northern Gondwana (Cretaceous Research)
  • Isisfordia molnari sp. nov., a new basal eusuchian from the mid-Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, Australia (PeerJ)
  • Vertebrate Microremains from the Pragian, Emsian and Eifelian of the Prague Basin (Czech Republic) (Link)
  • First Documented Pathologies in Tenontosaurus tilletti with Comments on Infection in Non-Avian Dinosaurs (SciRep)
  • Cretaceous dinosaur bone contains recent organic material and provides an environment conducive to microbial communities (eLife)
  • Digital dissection of the head of the rock dove (Columba livia) using contrast-enhanced computed tomography (Zoological Letters)
  • Untangling the Multiple Ecological Radiations of Early Mammals (TREE)
  • Caudal cranium of Thylacosmilus atrox (Mammalia, Metatheria, Sparassodonta), a South American predaceous sabertooth. (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History)
  • First Fossils of Hyenas (Chasmaporthetes, Hyaenidae, Carnivora) from North of the Arctic Circle (Open Quaternary)
  • First mesonychid from the Clarno Formation (Eocene) of Oregon, USA (PalaeoE)
  • Evolution of facial muscle anatomy in dogs (PNAS)

Preprints and Postprints:

  • Late Cretaceous dinosaur remains and other tetrapod fauna from the vicinity of Tran town (Western Srednogorie) (PaleorXiv)
  • Evolutionary time explains the global distribution of freshwater fish diversity (bioRXiv)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources: 

 Meetings:

  • North American Paleontological Convention June 23–27 2019 (Link)
  • Judith River Symposium (Great Plains Dinosaur Museum), Malta, Montana, June 28–30 (Link)
  • Dino Fest at the Science Museum of Minnesota, July 13, 10 am–4 pm (Link)
  • Cretaceous & Beyond: Paleo of Western Interior (Dickinson Museum), Dickinson, North Dakota, September 14–17 (Link)
  • Annual Meeting of the Paleontological Society (Paläontologische Gesellschaft), September 15–18, 2019, Munich (Link)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy, Fossils and Fossilization:

  • Episode 63 – Sexual Selection (Common Descent)
  • Baby Pterosaurs Could Fly. So, Did They Need Their Parents? (Live Science)
  • Huge ‘Mukawa’ dino found in Hokkaido in ’03 is a new species (Link)
  • Supersaurus, Ultrasaurus and Dystylosaurus in 2019, part 2: what we found in Utah (SVPOW)
  • Supersaurus, Ultrasaurus and Dystylosaurus in 2019, part 2b: the size of the BYU 9024 animal (SVPOW)
  • Supersaurus, Ultrasaurus and Dystylosaurus in 2019, part 3: the material of Supersaurus (SVPOW)
  • Diplodocus skull and first three cervicals in 3D (SVPOW)
  • Titanosaur osteoderms: functions and conclusions (Equatorial Minnesota)
  • THE CALLS OF THE PAST: HOW DINOSAURS MIGHT HAVE COMMUNICATED (Blogosaur)
  • Iconic Fossil Feather Probably Didn’t Belong to Archaeopteryx (Laelaps)
  • Ghostly Traces of Ancient Behemoths (Mostly Mammoths)

Featured Folks, Fieldwork, and Museums:

  • California Academy of Sciences appoints Dr. Scott Sampson as new executive director (Link)
  • Meet Jingmai O’Connor, the Punk Rock Paleontologist (Rewire)
  • A Young Paleontologist Goes Viral (Dr. Neurosaurus)
  • Meet the Natural History Museum’s dinosaur hunters (NHM)
  • Deep Time is a masterpiece (Extinct Monsters)
  • Fossil Friday – Back from Field Work (Valley of the Mastodon)
  • Meet the Museum: McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture (Time Scavengers)
  • Paleontology and civic pride: Philip Currie inducted into Edmonton Hall of Fame (Link)

Methods and Musings:

Arts, Books, Culture, Fun:

  • Episode 8. The Doctor Is In, A #DeepTime Series (Smithsonian NMNH)
  • Завораживающие фото Кристиана Фойгта (Alioramus altai)
  • Eyewitness Guides: Dinosaur – 30 years on (part 1) (LITC)
  • James Herrmann’s Aquilops bust (SVPOW)

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.

Fossil Friday Roundup: June 14, 2019

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

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Lunar cycles and rainy seasons drive growth and reproduction in nummulitid foraminifera, important producers of carbonate buildups (SciRep)
  • Quantifying spatial variability in shell midden formation in the Farasan Islands, Saudi Arabia (PLOS ONE)
  • Trilobite compound eyes with crystalline cones and rhabdoms show mandibulate affinities (SciRep)
  • New genus and species of Lamprosomatinae (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) from Eocene Baltic amber (PalaeoE)
  • A proposed terminology for the dentition of gomphodont cynodonts and dental morphology in Diademodontidae and Trirachodontidae (PeerJ)
  • On trends and patterns in macroevolution: Williston’s law and the branchiostegal series of extant and extinct osteichthyans (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
  • First partial skeleton of Delphinornis larseni Wiman, 1905, a slender-footed penguin from the Eocene of Antarctic Peninsula (PalaeoE)
  • Digital dissection of the head of the rock dove (Columba livia) using contrast-enhanced computed tomography (Zoological Letters)
  • History Repeats: Large Scale Synchronous Biological Turnover in Avifauna From the Plio-Pleistocene and Late Holocene of New Zealand (Frontiers In Ecology and Evolution)
  • Updated synthesis of South American Mesotheriidae (Notoungulata) with emphasis on west-central Argentina (Link)
  • Bone diagenesis in a Mycenaean secondary burial (Kastrouli, Greece) (Archaeological and Anthropological Science)
  • Philosophy of Macroevolution (Link)
  • Conserving evolutionary history does not result in greater diversity over geological time scales (ProcB)

Preprints and Postprints:

  • First report of paired ventral endites in a hurdiid radiodont (PaleorXiv)
  • First Report of Cretaceous Calcareous Nanofossils from the Ophiolite Associated Pelagic Sediments of Middle Andaman (Link)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources: 

 Meetings:

  • North American Paleontological Convention June 23–27 2019 (Link)
  • Judith River Symposium (Great Plains Dinosaur Museum), Malta, Montana, June 28–30 (Link)
  • Dino Fest at the Science Museum of Minnesota, July 13, 10 am–4 pm (Link)
  • Cretaceous & Beyond: Paleo of Western Interior (Dickinson Museum), Dickinson, North Dakota, September 14–17 (Link)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy, Fossils and Fossilization:

  • Why Crocodiles Are Not Just Living Fossils (NY Times)
  • Dawn of the Crunch (Laelaps)
  • Supersaurus, Ultrasaurus and Dystylosaurus in 2019, part 1: what we know now (SVPOW)
  • Rare Dinosaur Fossils Reveal New Details of Prosaurolophus Display Features (Inside the Royal Tyrrell Museum)
  • Miocene (Pt 14): Sabre-toothed Sea Otters (Synapsida)
  • Still snarling after 40,000 years, a giant Pleistocene wolf discovered in Yakutia (Link)

Featured Folks, Fieldwork, and Museums:

  • Highlands Ranch Fossil Site Just One Project For Dino Diggers This Summer (Link)
  • ProgPal 2019 (Raptormaniacs)
  • What I Did While I Was Out (Equatorial Minnesota)
  • Brazil wins legal fight over 100-million-year-old fossil bounty (Link)

Methods and Musings:

  • Dinosaur fossils are available for sale on eBay. so why did it take America’s national museum so long to get a Tyrannosaurus rex? (Link)
  • Reforming scholarly publishing (GTV)
  • Meetings and Management (Time Scavengers)

Arts, Books, Culture, Fun:

  • Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs (St Michael) – Part 2 (LITC)

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.

Fossil Friday Roundup: June 7, 2019

Featured Image: Coreoperca maruoi Yabumoto and Uyeno, 2009 KMNH VP 100,261. From Yabomuto (2019).

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 64 (2) 2019: Complete Open Access Journal Issue
  • Timing and ecological priority shaped the diversification of sedges in the Himalayas (PeerJ)
  • An ammonite trapped in Burmese amber (PNAS)
  • An ichthyodectiform fish, Amakusaichthys goshouraensis (new Japanese name: Amakusagoshouramukashiuo) from the upper Cretaceous Himenoura Group in Goshoura, Amakua, Kumamto, Japan (Fossils)
  • The lost freshwater goby fish fauna (Teleostei, Gobiidae) from the early Miocene of Klinci (Serbia) (SJP)
  • Mesozoic and Cenozoic osteichthyan fish fossils from Japan based on the specimens deposited in Japanese museums and their potential. (J-stage)
  • Current state of research on Quaternary freshwater fossil fishes in Japan (Fossils)
  • zDigital dissection of the pelvis and hindlimb of the red-legged running frog, Phlyctimantis maculatus, using Diffusible Iodine Contrast Enhanced computed microtomography (DICE μCT) (PeerJ)
  • The cutting-edge morphology of the mole snake’s dental apparatus (PeerJ)
  • The fossil record of durophagous predation in the James Ross Basin over the last 125 million years (APS)
  • Forelimbs of the theropod dinosaur Dilophosaurus wetherilli: Range of motion, influence of paleopathology and soft tissues, and description of a distal carpal bone (PalaeoE)
  • Fostoria dhimbangunmal, gen. et sp. nov., a new iguanodontian (Dinosauria, Ornithopoda) from the mid-Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia (JVP)
  • Taphonomic analysis of saurischian dinosaurs from the Plottier Formation (Upper Cretaceous), Mendoza, Argentina (Andean Geology)
  • First find of the dromaeosauridae (dinosauria: dromaeosauridae) ungual from the late cretaceous Blagoveschensk dinosaur locality (Amur Region, Russia) (ДОКЛАДЫ АКАДЕМИИ НАУК)
  • Skeletal atlas of the Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) (PalaeoE)
  • Review of the actualistic taphonomy of small mammals ingested by South American predators. Its importance in the interpretation of the fossil record (Publicación Electrónica de la Asociación Paleontológica Argentina)
  • Sciuromorphy outside rodents reveals an ecomorphological convergence between squirrels and extinct South American ungulates (Communications Biology)
  • Tendons from kangaroo rats are exceptionally strong and tough (SciRep)
  • Phylogeography and ecological niche modeling unravel the evolutionary history of the Yarkand hare, Lepus yarkandensis (Mammalia: Leporidae), through the Quaternary (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
  • Crown beaked whale fossils from the Chepotsunai Formation (latest Miocene) of Tomamae Town, Hokkaido, Japan (PalaeoE)
  • Taurida cave, a new locality of the early pleistocene vertebrates in Crimea (ДОКЛАДЫ АКАДЕМИИ НАУК)
  • The late pleistocene deposits and the small mammals’ fauna of the Middle Palaeolithic site Betovo (Desna River basin) (Link)
  • Ancient Mitogenomes Reveal the Evolutionary History and Biogeography of Sloths (Current Biology)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources: 

 Meetings:

  • 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, Fossils and Fossilization:

  • Rare fossils provide more detailed picture of biodiversity during Middle Ordovician (KU)
  • When Fingers Changed Fins (Laelaps)
  • Run like a Dinosaur (Laelaps)
  • Dakosaurus: Beast of the Week (PBW)
  • Feathers came first, then birds (University of Bristol)
  • The Porcupine Sleeps Tonight (Synapsida)
  • Fossil Friday – Camelops tooth (Valley of the Mastodon)
  • The Hellacious Lives of the “Hell Pigs” (PBS Eons)
  • Conditions the World Cannot Conceive: Studying Taung in 1920s South Africa (Paige Madison)
  • Episode 62 – Amber (Common Descent)

Featured Folks, Fieldwork, and Museums:

Methods and Musings:

  • The ‘Great Dying’ Nearly Erased Life On Earth. Scientists See Similarities To Today (NPR)
  • Marine ecosystems have entered the Anthropocene (Letters from Gondwana)
  • An Overview of Open Access Publishing in Palaeontology (GTV)
  • Hype and Trust (Extinct)

Arts, Books, Culture, Fun:

  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Some Trivial But Monstrous Thoughts  (TetZoo)
  • Book review – I, Mammal: The Story of What Makes Us Mammals (The Inquisitive Biologist)
  • My sauroponderous birthday card from Brian Engh (SVPOW)

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.

Fossil Friday Roundup: May 31, 2019

Featured Image: Fossilized school of fish. From Mizumoto et al. (2019).

Papers (All Open Access):

  • The Effect of Fossil Sampling on the Estimation of Divergence Times With The Fossilised Birth Death Process (Systematic Biology)
  • Swapping Birth and Death: Symmetries and Transformations in Phylodynamic Models (Systematic Biology)
  • An overview of Open Access publishing in palaeontology (PalaeoE)
  • A new species of Cacomorphocerus Schaufuss, 1892 (Coleoptera: Cantharidae) from Baltic amber with a key to known species (PalaeoE)
  • Increasing species sampling in chelicerate genomic-scale datasets provides support for monophyly of Acari and Arachnida (Nature Comm)
  • A reappraisal of the Silurian galeaspids (stem-Gnathostomata) from Tarim Basin, Xinjiang (Link)
  • Inferring collective behaviour from a fossilized fish shoal (ProcB)
  • Macroevolution of arboreality in salamanders (Ecology and Evolution)
  • Examining the relationship between sexual dimorphism in skin anatomy and body size in the white-lipped treefrog, Litoria infrafrenata (Anura: Hylidae) (ZJLS)
  • 3d Casts From Natural Molds: A Case Study In Fossil Frogs (Link)
  • Two new basal coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs from the Lower Cretaceous Sao Khua Formation of Thailand (APP)
  • Author Correction: Exquisitely-preserved, high-definition skin traces in diminutive theropod tracks from the Cretaceous of Korea (SciRep)
  • Hoatzin nestling locomotion: Acquisition of quadrupedal limb coordination in birds (ScienceAdvances)
  • A new record of a giant neoepiblemid rodent from Peruvian Amazonia and an overview of lower tooth dental homologies among chinchilloids (APP)
  • Tracing the history of LINE and SINE extinction in sigmodontine rodents (Mobile DNA)
  • Evolutionary shifts in extant mustelid (Mustelidae: Carnivora) cranial shape, body size and body shape coincide with the Mid-Miocene Climate Transition (Biology Letters)
  • 3D Photogrammetry of Bat Skulls: Perspectives for Macro-evolutionary Analyses (Evolutionary Biology)
  • A large hyaenodont from the Lutetian of Switzerland expands the body mass range of the European mammalian predators during the Eocene (APP)
  • Evolution of Early Equus in Italy, Georgia, the Indian Subcontinent, East Africa, and the Origins of African Zebras (Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution)
  • Dinohippus mexicanus (Early-Late, Late, and Latest Hemphillian) and the Transition to Genus Equus, in Central Mexico Faunas (Frontiers in Earth Science)
  • Mystacodon selenensis, the earliest known toothed mysticete (Cetacea, Mammalia) from the late Eocene of Peru: anatomy, phylogeny, and feeding adaptations (Geodiversitas)
  • Chimpanzee extractive foraging with excavating tools: Experimental modeling of the origins of human technology (PLOS ONE)
  • A comparison of hominin teeth from Lincoln Cave, Sterkfontein L/63, and the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa (SAJS)
  • Developmental stress in South African hominins: Comparison of recurrent enamel hypoplasias in Australopithecus africanus and Homo naledi (SAJS)
  • Metatarsophalangeal proportions of Homo naledi (SAJS)
  • Sexual dimorphism in Homo erectus inferred from 1.5 Ma footprints near Ileret, Kenya (SciRep)
  • Heading north: Late Pleistocene environments and human dispersals in central and eastern Asia (PLOS ONE)
  • Living on the edge: Was demographic weakness the cause of Neanderthal demise? (PLOS ONE)
  • The historical archive of the Palaeontological Collection Of Tübingen, Germany (PalaeoE)

Preprints/PostPrints:

  • Primer registro del género Panochthus Burmeister 1886 (Mammalia, Xenarthra, Glyptodontidae) para la provincia de Salta, Argentina (PaleorXiv)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources: 

 Meetings:

  • 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)

Society Updates:

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy:

  • Mega-raptors were top predators in Thailand 100 million years ago (PLOS Paleo)
  • Run Like a Dinosaur (Laelaps)
  • The science of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, part 3: Megalosaurus, Hylaeosaurus and Iguanodon (Mark Witton)
  • A Look at Prosauropods: The Forgotten Dinosaurs (Palaeocast)
  • Your Friends The Titanosaurs, part 12: Futalognkosaurus, Gondwanatitan, and Hypselosaurus (Equatorial Minnesota)
  • The History of Climate Cycles (and the Woolly Rhino) Explained (PBS Eons)
  • Fossil Jaws Are a Sign of When Mammals Bounced Back (Laelaps)

Featured Folks, Fieldwork, and Museums:

  • The ‘Nation’s T. Rex’ Prepares to Make Its Smithsonian Debut (Smithsonian)
  • I’m Making a TV Show!! (Brain Scoop)
  • Fossil Collecting at Caesar’s Creek Spillway (Time Scavengers)
  • Johanna M. Resig Fellowship: Honoring a Wonderful Foraminiferal Researcher (Time Scavengers)

Methods and Musings:

  • Troubled treasure (Link)
  • New study: An overview of Open Access publishing in palaeontology (GTV)
  • Death by Falling Rocks and Trees (TetZoo)

Arts, Books, Culture, Fun:

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.