One new calcareous nannofossil genus Senilatus; four new calcareous nannofossil species Calculites favosus, Lithraphidites? charactozorro Self-Trail and Pospichal, Rucinolithus oriens, and Watznaueria bybelliae; and one new combination, Senilatus zipperum n. gen. and comb., are described from Upper Cretaceous (upper Campanian to Maastrichtian) sediments of east-central South Carolina. These new species were described from five coreholes located in marine coastal plain deposits. There is evidence that the presence of one species, Senilatus zipperum, is indicative of nearshore, restricted environments. Scanning electron and light microscope pictures are provided for two species, Cretarhabdus multicavus Bukry, 1969 and Retemediaformis teneraretis Varol, 1991, that have previously been documented only with the transmission electron microscope. The ranges of these two species have been extended beyond those stated in the original descriptions.

John K. Page, Chief of the Production Section of the Zoological Record has kindly informed us (personal commun., 16 November 1998) that the generic name Tetraloba Alvarez, Rong, and Boucot, 1998 (Brachiopoda: Athyridida) (Alvarez et al., 1998, p. 843) is preoccupied by an insect (Collembola) genus published by Lee, 1983. According to Article 60 of the ICZN rules, we here propose Quadriloba (from the Latin, quattuor, four and lobus, a rounded projection or protuberance) as replacement name for Tetraloba Alvarez, Rong, and Boucot, 1998, not Tetraloba Lee, 1983.

When extracting or cleaning phosphatic fossils using acetic acid, the solutions must be buffered with calcium acetate to a pH greater than 3.6 for conodont and many fish taxa, and to a slightly greater pH for some conulariid, shark, and some fish taxa. Diagrams of the changes in pH and density during dissolution, rate of dissolution, and productivity per liter of acid provide a means for selecting the economically optimal process, monitoring the progress, and adjusting the composition of the solution when necessary.

Dr. Thomas Waller has called our attention to a taxonomic problem involving our choice of Lyriomyophoria as the generic assignment for a recently described Triassic bivalve (Boyd and Newell, 1997). We are grateful for his help in finding and analyzing the pertinent literature.

More than 70 species of Paleozoic articulate brachiopods with color patterns have been reported in the literature (see Blodgett et al., 1983, table 1; Table 1). The majority of them are Devonian terebratuloid brachiopods. Twenty-two Permian brachiopod species were previously described as retaining color patterns. Most of them belong to Dielasma and have radial to subradial color patterns. Here we report a smooth spiriferid, Martinia? sp., with well-preserved radial color bands from Late Permian rocks of South China.

Tripp et al. (1977, p. 862) briefly described a small encrinurine from the Silurian of Wisconsin and Illinois. They refrained from naming this taxon, due to its being “as yet imperfectly known,” referring to the lack of testiferous material, the distortion and abrasion of most of the specimens, and the paucity of known cephalic sclerites. Lateral compression and abrasion of the only known cranidium (Tripp et al., 1997, pl. 114, figs. 8 and 9, from Brookfield, Wisconsin) were severe, but large, sparse tubercles were discernible. Gass et al. (1992) established Mackenziurus lauriae to include this and other material, all from various inter-reef Wenlock-Ludlow Racine Dolomite and Sugar Run Dolomite localities in Wisconsin and Illinois, respectively. All of this material is in the form of internal and external molds in dolomitized calcilutite, and most of the Wisconsin specimens are distorted to varying degrees. Among the material which Gass et al. (1992) introduced was a nonabraded, slightly-distorted cranidium with articulated librigenae (Gass et al., 1992, fig. 5.1-5.3) from the same locality in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, which produced the majority of the other known material, and a complete, enrolled, nondistorted but weathered exoskeleton (Gass et al., 1992, fig. 5.4-5.7) from an unrecorded locality and formation in Grafton, Illinois. Those are only the second and third specimens known to preserve the cranidium. Differences in the rostral plate [inferred to be narrower (tr.) on the Wauwatosa specimen] and glabellar tuberculation (larger and fewer in number on the Grafton and Brookfield specimens) were attributed to intra-specific variation. Due to its superior preservation in contrast to the other cranidiumbearing specimens, and the more complete occurrence data, the Wauwatosa specimen was designated as holotype of Mackenziurus lauriae.

Eocene land vertebrates are rare, relatively recent, discoveries in the Canadian Arctic islands. The first were discovered in 1975 in Eocene-aged strata of the Eureka Sound Group, western Ellesmere Island, and reported by Dawson et al. (1976). Subsequent discoveries occurred in the 1980s in similar-aged strata on both Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg islands (Dawson, 1990; Dawson et al., 1993), bringing the tally of vertebrate families to over 30 (Marincovich et al., 1990; Dawson, 1990). The vertebrate fauna provides strong evidence for a mild, equable Arctic climate during the Eocene (Estes and Hutchison, 1980), corroborated by the paleoflora (Axelrod, 1984; Basinger, 1986, 1991). Supporting this interpretation, the isotopically-determined mean ocean surface temperature at 70°N was a mild 10-15°, a far cry from today's mean of −10° (Barron, 1987; Shackleton and Boersma, 1981; McKenna, 1980).