The Pseudokoldinioidia Fauna is a newly documented uppermost Cambrian trilobite assemblage from the Dongjeom Formation of the Taebaek Group, Taebaeksan Basin, Korea. It is characterized by low species diversity comprising six trilobite taxa: Micragnostus chiushuensis, Koldinioidia typicalis, leiostegiid genus and species indeterminate, Pseudokoldinioidia perpetis, Onychopyge borealis, and pilekiid genus and species indeterminate. Of these, special attention has been paid to Pseudokoldinioidia perpetis, which was originally assigned to Missisquoia, an index fossil for the uppermost Cambrian in Laurentia. Pseudokoldinioidia is restricted to eastern Asia, whereas Missisquoia is confined to Laurentia. The appearance of the Pseudokoldinioidia Fauna is interpreted as contemporaneous with the base of the ‘Missisquoia’ perpetis Zone of North China, which in turn is correlated with the base of the Missisquoia typicalis Subzone of Laurentia. The associated Koldinioidia and Onychopyge make it possible to compare the Pseudokoldinioidia Fauna of Korea and North China with the latest Cambrian trilobite assemblages of South China, Australia, South America, and Mexico, and also suggests an interesting biogeographic connection among these areas in the latest Cambrian.

Identification of tracemakers is of primary importance for evaluating the biotic interactions inferred from bore holes in fossil shell assemblages. Domicile bore holes in the subapical whorls of gastropods produced by spionid polychaete Dipolydora sp., supposed to be commensal with hermit crabs, are common in dead gastropod assemblages from deepwater habitats in the Philippines. These holes exhibit unique features and support a new criterion for the interpretation of nonpredatory borings in fossil gastropods. Diagnostic of these bore holes are: small circular to elliptical outer opening, the presence of weak dissolution of the columella beneath the bore hole, and the presence of a hollowed tube composed of detritus held together with mucus within some gastropod whorls anterior to the hole. The two selection factors of subapical whorls and elongate shells are supplementary criteria for recognition of these holes. Bore holes are recognized here in a deepwater gastropod assemblage from the upper Pliocene Shinzato Formation of Okinawa, Japan, and named Polydorichnus subapicalis n. igen. and isp. These holes are identical to modern examples exhibiting similar site and species selectivity. P. subapicalis has its oldest fossil record in the upper Miocene of the Philippines, was common in offshore assemblages from the Miocene onward, and is a good indicator of occupation by a hermit crab and for commensalism between polychaetes and hermit crabs.

Jugiaster n. gen. is based on the Upper Ordovician asteroid (Echinodermata) Petraster speciosus; in addition, a second Upper Ordovician occurrence, Phyrtosaster casteri, new gen. and sp., is described. Both species exhibit mouth frame characters suggestive of those long considered typical of early ophiuroids, thereby demonstrating the adaptive versatility and complexity of asterozoan diversification. Jugiaster specimens also exhibit delicate ambulacral column articulation. The new fossils indicate the need for much further study before early asterozoan history will be well understood.

An echinoderm fauna from the Lower Devonian (Lochkovian) Cravatt Member of the Bois d'Arc Formation near Clarita, Oklahoma, has yielded specimens of recumbent, essentially bilaterally symmetrical taxa which are similar to Ordovician genera but absent or sparsely represented in Silurian strata. Claritacarpus smithi n. gen. and sp., is a dendrocystitid homoiostele with morphology similar to the Late Ordovician Dendrocystoides Jaekel, 1918; the anomalocystitid stylophoran Victoriacystis aff. holmesorum Ruta and Jell, 1999 shows strong affinities to Victoriacystis holmesorum Ruta and Jell, 1999, Humevale Formation, of Victoria, Australia; and the pleurocystitid rhombiferan, Turgidacystis graffhami n. gen. and sp., has close affinities to the Middle Ordovician Coopericystis Parsley, 1970 of West Virginia and Henicocystis Jell, 1983 of Victoria, Australia. Claritacarpus and Turgidacystis are North American range extensions for homoiosteles and pleurocystitids, respectively, being previously unknown from rocks younger than Upper Ordovician. Globally, Silurian homoiosteles and pleurocystitids are unknown although both occur in the Lower Devonian of Germany and Australia; additionally, Early Devonian pleurocystitids are known from Great Britain and Bohemia. These genera illustrate a pseudoextinction pattern suggesting a significant unsampled Silurian “homalozoan” and pleurocystitid history.

In the course of ongoing revision of the ant genus Myrmica Latreille, 1804, we located, in the collections of the Russian and Polish Academies of Sciences, pieces of Baltic Amber (Late Eocene, ca. 40 Ma; earlier this amber was considered to be Oligocene, e.g., see Wheeler, 1915; Larsson, 1978; Bolton, 1995; Dlussky, 1997), that each contained a fossilized specimen of Myrmica. We were also fortunate to be given access to a piece of Saxonian Amber (the same age as Baltic Amber) from the collection of Manfred Kutscher that contained three specimens of Myrmica. Four of the specimens belong to two new species. We describe these below, placing them in context with extant species, and we re-appraise all previously described fossil Myrmica, providing a key to the identification of the five extinct “true” Myrmica species.

Marine crustaceans were not known as inclusions in amber from upper Aptian–middle Albian deposits in Northern Spain. The publication of a photograph of a purported fossil amphipod (Alonso et al., 2000) among many other arthropods promised to be of high interest because the fossil record of the amphipoda does not extend further than Upper Eocene (Schram, 1986; Coleman and Myers, 2000). The Museum of Natural Sciences of Álava in Vitoria-Gasteiz (AMNS), northern Spain, kindly sent us the material with the presumed amphipods, as our intention was to investigate its affinities to other fossil amphipods. The fossil crustaceans of this assemblage were found among 15 orders of insects, spiders, and mites—i.e., mainly terrestrial arthropods.

Pharciceras Hyatt, 1884 is the diagnostic ammonoid of the late middle Givetian Stage of the Middle Devonian Series. It occurs in the Rhenish Massif in Germany, the Montagne Noire in southern France, and in equivalent strata in the Anti-Atlas in southern Morocco. Verified North American occurrences of Pharciceras are confined to the New York succession, where the appearance of the ancestral species P. amplexum (Hall, 1886) in the Upper Tully Limestone represents an important and well-established biostratigraphic datum within the Taghanic onlap interval (see Aboussalam and Becker, 2001 for discussion). In this note we describe a second, distinctly younger, North American species, Pharciceras barnetti n. sp., from the New Albany Shale in eastcentral Kentucky that provides new evidence on the Taghanic onlap interval (Upper Tully/Geneseo Sequence of Baird and Brett, 2003) in the central Appalachian Basin. This occurrence is particularly significant because of its association with conodonts that provide a basis for refined correlations between the central Appalachian Basin and the Taghanic onlap succession in New York.

Macropyge (Promacropyge) scandinavica new species is described from the Furongian Peltura minor Zone on northwestern Mount Kinnekulle, southcentral Sweden. It represents the first macropyginid trilobite recorded in Baltica. M. (P.) scandinavica closely resembles other species of the same subgenus from southeast China, suggesting a correlation between the Scandinavian P. minor Zone and the Lotagnostus americanus-Hedinaspis regalis Zone of China. The specimens are preserved in two limestone lithologies, interpreted as representing alternating normal and storm deposits, supporting the idea of an intrabasinal paleohigh in Västergötland, southcentral Sweden.

Ossified clavicles, either as paired elements or as a median furcula, have been recorded in all major clades of dinosaurs, including ornithischians, sauropodomorphs, and theropods (Bryant and Russell, 1993). Nearly all but the most basal theropods, Eoraptor lunensis and Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis, have an ossified furcula including coelophysids (Downs, 2000; Tykoski et al., 2002; Carrano et al., 2005), allosauroids (Chure and Madsen, 1996), tyrannosaurids (Makovicky and Currie, 1998; Larson and Donnan, 2002; Brochu, 2003; Lipkin and Sereno, 2004; Larson and Rigby, 2005), therizinosaurids (Xu et al., 1999a; Zhang et al., 2001), oviraptorids (Barsbold, 1983; Clark et al., 1999, 2001; Hwang et al., 2002; Osmólska et al., 2004), troodontids (Xu and Norell, 2004), and dromaeosaurids (Norell et al., 1997; Norell and Makovicky, 1999; Xu et al., 1999b; Burnham et al., 2000; Hwang et al., 2002). No ossification of any element beyond the coracoid has been found in the pectoral girdle of the well-preserved primitive theropods, Eoraptor lunensis and Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis.

We describe the integumentary anatomy of titanosaur sauropod embryos from the Auca Mahuevo nesting site. Natural (calcitic) casts of the skin show the non-imbricating, tuberculate scales (i.e., tubercles) typical of other non-avian dinosaurs. However, a variety of scale patterns previously unknown for the skin of these animals is reported. The observed integumentary patterns include ground tubercles, large and elongated tubercles, parallel rows of large tubercles, tubercles in rosette-like and flower-like arrangements, and in striate-like rows. Ground tubercles and rosette-like patterns resemble the few examples of skin known for adult sauropods. The former pattern also resembles the arrangement of osteoderms of the armored titanosaur Saltasaurus. Although the embryonic skin does not show definitive evidence of armor, the posthatching development of osteoderms cannot be ruled out. This material, the only available evidence of the embryonic skin of non-avian dinosaurs, contributes significantly to our knowledge of the integumentary morphology of these animals.

The skull and mandible of Nothodipoides Korth are described. There are a number of adaptations present that are shared with other rodents with tooth-digging behavior (procumbent, elongated, and flattened incisors; anteriorly tilted occipital; strongly arched upper diastema). A new tribe of Castoroidinae, Nothodipoidini, is proposed for Nothodipoides and Microdipoides Korth and Stout, based on the fossorial adaptations of the skull, and their generally smaller size. It appears that fossorial adaptations have occurred in castorids at least three times: the Palaeocastorinae (Whitneyan through Arikareean), the primitive beaver Migmacastor (Arikareean), and the Nothodipoidini (late Barstovian through the Clarendonian).

Sponges, along with scleractinian corals, are among the main reef-building organisms in Triassic reefs. Hypercalcified groups, including the chambered sphinctozoans, and the unchambered inozoans, chaetetids, and spongiomorphids, represent the most abundant Triassic reef-building sponges. Earlier workers have described elements of the latter group as “hydrozoans.” Hexactinellid sponges, abundant in some Permian reefs (e.g., in Texas, Finks, 1960), are rarely known from similar Triassic deposits, in general (Tichy, 1975), and particularly from Upper Triassic stratigraphic units. Hexactinellid sponges have been sporadically reported from well-investigated Upper Triassic reefs in the western Tethyan region (e.g., Keupp et al., 1989). However, a variety of hexactinellid sponges have been reported from Upper Triassic deposits and reefal limestones of the northern and central Tethyan realm (Boiko, 1990; Wu, 1989; Wu and Xiao, 1989; Rigby et al., 1998).

O'Dogherty (1994) erected the genus Pogonias for a distinctive group of Cretaceous radiolarians characterized by a tetrahedral thoracic segment drawn out distally into divergent appendages and considered, from a stratigraphic point of view, as a useful marker for the Albian-Turonian interval. By chance, we have recently discovered that the name Pogonias has been preoccupied two times, first by a fish Pogonias La Cepède, 1801 (p. 137), and later by an aves Pogonias Illiger, 1811 (p. 202). Thus, in accordance with the requirements of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999, article 60), we proposed the name Pogonisella nomen novum as a replacement name for Pogonias O'Dogherty, 1994, not Pogonias La Cepède, 1801, not Pogonias Illiger, 1811. The type species of Pogonisella (feminine gender) is P. prodromus by original designation (O'Dogherty, 1994).