Taphofacies have been based on the likelihood that considerable variability exists in taphonomic processes between different environments and that this variability produces predictable variations in taphonomic signature between assemblages. Three stations above storm wave base that differed little in sediment texture and depth were sampled on the inner continental shelf of central Texas. Taphonomic analysis revealed subtle gradients in sediment grain size and water depth that would not be revealed by most other analyses. These gradients may exist over very small spatial scales, equivalent to those within a single extensive outcrop. Not all taphonomic attributes are equally likely to be preserved in the fossil record. Those varying with depth in our study area, such as fragmentation and articulation, are more likely to be preserved than those documenting changes in sediment texture, such as variation in the frequency of dissolution features on the shells. Nevertheless, siting and sampling protocols are important when characterizing a taphofacies because within-habitat variation is potentially as large as between-habitat variation. Description of the average taphofacies for an environment must include documentation of the variation in taphonomic attributes within the sampled area because few conservative taphonomic attributes exist. Fragments, even those that are unidentifiable, retain significant taphonomic information and should not be ignored. Careful sampling should permit the simultaneous description of general taphofacies as well as the detection of important but unsuspected gradients in the environment.

Portheus patagonicus Ameghino, 1901, described on the basis of an isolated tooth from the Leonian Stage (Upper Oligocene–Lower Miocene) of Patagonia, was interpreted as belonging to an ichthyodectiform fish. Recently, the holotype was relocated and an additional tooth was found. Comparison of both specimens and some additional information permit the identification of the teeth as belonging to a delphinoid cetacean of the family Kentriodontidae. This is the first report of this family in the southern Atlantic region.

The Clypeastroid echinoid Fibularia texana (Twitchell) has been reported in the literature from only two localities. Twitchell (Clark and Twitchell, 1915) reported that the holotype was collected by T. H. Aldrich from an unspecified locality in Lee County, Texas, from the “Lower Claiborne,” Middle Eocene. Cooke (1942, 1959) reported F. texana from the Weches Formation, lower Claiborne, in San Augustine County, Texas (see Eargle, 1968, for stratigraphic nomenclature). He intimated that the type occurrence in Lee County was also from the Weches Formation. I have recently collected F. texana from the fossiliferous Cook Mountain (upper Claiborne) deposits exposed along Elm Creek in Lee County. Evidence is presented to show that Aldrich's original collection was from Cook Mountain exposures along Elm Creek, and this is designated as the type locality.

Rousseau H. Flower described and figured about 400 new fossil taxa. In addition, he probably described and figured an equal number of other fossils during his long career (Wolberg, 1988). Appropriate disposition of the specimens held within our collections is of major concern to the NMBM&MR. We are most concerned for the long-term care of the fossils and their availability to interested persons. The importance of this material can be seen from the very large number of holotypes included in this second notice of transfer. This note continues the transfer to the Smithsonian Institution of fossil specimens described and/or figured by Rousseau Flower (1964) and housed at the NMBM&MR. This series begins at number 47, and continues the listing from Wolberg (1990). It is obvious that the sheer volume of figured material at the NMBM&MR will require additional notices.

The trilobite species Cryphaeus nicholsi Roy, 1929, was based on two pygidia from a Devonian red sandstone bed at Patacamaya, La Paz Department, Bolivia. Study of the syntypes (Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago) reveals that two well-known species are represented.

Pre-pleistocene fossil vertebrates are rare fossils in the Antillean region. The majority of vertebrate deposits found in the West Indies are of Late Pleistocene age, usually, but not always (MacPhee et al., 1989), dating from after the last interglacial. These faunas are cave and fissure accumulations of disarticulated bones of small terrestrial vertebrates, particularly rodents, birds, and lizards. In contrast, pre-Quaternary vertebrates of the Caribbean islands are particularly poorly known. For example, Jamaica, which has one of the most extensively studied fossil records in the region, has hitherto produced only three Tertiary vertebrates, all aquatic and hitherto known only from unique specimens. These include: the late Early Eocene sirenian Prorastomus sirenoides Owen, 1855, originally described on the basis of the skull, mandible, and atlas vertebra (for a recent discussion of this species, see Savage, 1977); the lower jaw of the early Middle Eocene crocodilian Charactosuchus kugleri Berg, 1969; and a fragment of needlefish jaw from the Pliocene (Caldwell, 1966). It is therefore significant to report the discovery of an early Middle Eocene sequence in which bones are not uncommon, including a bone bed that has produced a moderate diversity of aquatic (marine?) taxa.

E. H. Sellards (1916, p. 96) applied the new binomen “Hipparion minor” to the very small hipparionine horse from the early Pliocene Bone Valley District of peninsular Florida. Since the gender of Hipparion is neuter, the ending of the species name must be amended to agree with it (Articles 32d and 34b, ICZN, 1985), and thus the correct spelling of the original species name for this taxon is Hipparion minus Sellards. This correction was previously instituted by Hay (1930, p. 693). However, this name is a primary junior homonym of Hipparion minus Pavlow, 1890, a Eurasian species of horse, and as such is permanently invalid (Articles 52b, 53c(ii), and 57b, ICZN, 1985). Hipparion minus Pavlow was in common use for small hipparionine horses from Russia and Greece during the first quarter of this century. Although now generally regarded as a nomen dubium, it was used as a valid subspecies as recently as Pirlot (1956). Its present disuse in no way affects the condition of primary homonymy between the two species names.

Although many of the surviving lineages of sea stars appeared during an early Mesozoic radiation of the class and have undergone limited change since then, they have left a very poor fossil record, particularly in the Mesozoic of North America (Blake, 1981). This record from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta is made more significant by the fact that it is apparently only the second occurrence of a member of the family Astropectinidae in the Cretaceous of North America; Lophidiaster silentiensis was described by McLearn (1944) from the Lower Cretaceous (Albian) Hasler Formation, from a now-submerged locality on the Peace River in northern Alberta. All previously recorded fossil sea stars from the North American Cretaceous are representatives of the family Goniasteridae.

A newly discovered vertebrate fossil assemblage, the Casa Blanca local fauna, comes from the Laredo Formation, Claiborne Group, of Webb County, Texas, and is the first reported Eocene land-mammal fauna from the coastal plain of North America. The mammalian fauna is correlated with the Serendipity and Candelaria local faunas of west Texas, the Uinta C faunas of the Rocky Mountains, the Santiago Formation local fauna of southern California, and the Swift Current Creek local fauna of Saskatchewan. The vertebrate-bearing deposit lies approximately 32 m above a horizon containing the marine gastropod Turritella cortezi, which ranges from east Texas to northeast Mexico in the lower half of the Cook Mountain and Laredo Formations and is a guide fossil for the Hurricane Lentil in the Cook Mountain Formation. Nannoplankton found in these middle Eocene formations belong to the upper half of Nannoplankton Zone 16 and allow correlation with European beds of late Lutetian to early Bartonian age.

Over 700 specimens represent at least 30 species of 28 mammal genera. The Casa Blanca fauna is the southernmost and easternmost North American land-mammal fauna of definite Eocene age, and is the westernmost Paleogene vertebrate fauna from the Gulf Coastal Plain.

Ichnofacies stand today as one of the more elegant but widely misunderstood concepts in ichnology, especially where paleobathymetry is concerned. Marine ichnofacies are not intended to be paleobathometers, as some workers continue to imply (e.g., Lockley et al., 1987; Ekdale, 1988); rather, they are archetypical facies models based upon recurring ichnocoenoses (Frey and Pemberton, 1984, 1985, 1987). If a particular ichnocoenose tends to occur repeatedly within a given bathymetric setting, so much the better; but water depth per se is rarely, if ever, a governing factor. Ichnocoenoses and ichnofacies, therefore, are best viewed in the context of actual depositional conditions or environmental gradients, wherever they occur (Figure 1).

Medusaegraptus mirabilis Ruedemann was originally described as a dendroid graptolite and is currently listed in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology among graptolites incertae sedis. Recently, several localities yielding abundant M. mirabilis were discovered, prompting renewed interest in the taxonomic affinities of this species. Based on a study of the morphology and paleoecology of M. mirabilis, this species is herein considered to represent a noncalcified dasyclad alga. Other species of Medusaegraptus are similarly considered.

Medusaegraptid-bearing strata commonly contain other exceptionally preserved fossils and represent conservation lagerstaetten. Consideration of medusaegraptids as dasyclad algae restricts the depth at which these deposits could have occurred.

Two fossil wing specimens from adult cockroaches (order Blattaria) were discovered during field investigations at the Cretaceous outcrop of the Cobb's Creek site (NE1/4, sec. 4, T109N, R30W; Brown County) near New Ulm, Minnesota. Prior to the present investigation, no adult fossil insect parts from Minnesota have been described from deposits as old as the Cretaceous. Lewis (1970) described immature caddisfly cases (Trichoptera) from the Cobb's Creek site.

The Edaphosauridae is an important family of primitive synapsids that includes the oldest known terrestrial herbivorous vertebrates. Until the recent description of a new, primitive edaphosaur from the Upper Pennsylvanian of Kansas (Reisz and Berman, 1986), the herbivorous Edaphosaurus was the only known member of the family. Accordingly, fragmentary edaphosaurid materials from Europe and North America had been assigned to Edaphosaurus on the basis of the characteristic neural spine morphology.

As first State Paleontologist of New York, T. A. Conrad is widely recognized as an important pioneer of American paleontology. Highlights of his career and tragic personal life, as well as his portrait, are given by Merrill (1906, p. 344, 354–357).

The genus Cribrella Lipina, 1989, with type species Cribrella mstaensis Lipina, was described from the Lower Carboniferous (middle Visean) of the southern Urals, and placed in the family Lituotubellidae (Lipina, 1989, p. 40, PL II, figs. 1–4). As the generic name is preoccupied by Cribrella Agassiz, 1835, an echinoderm, Cribrella Schmid, 1892, a sponge, Cribrella Cossman, 1906, a bryozoan, and Cribrella Gawor-Biedowa, 1987, a foraminifer, the new name Cribroaperturata is herein proposed for Cribrella Lipina. The type species of the genus thus becomes Cribroaperturata mstaensis (Lipina).

The small ichthyosaur Mixosaurus is the most widely distributed ichthyosaur. It is known from Lower Triassic rocks of British Columbia, Canada (Callaway and Brinkman, 1989), and Middle Triassic rocks of northwestern North America (Alaska, British Columbia), China, Timor, the western Tethys (Switzerland, Italy, Turkey), the Germanic Triassic, and the high Arctic (Spitsbergen, Exmouth Island) (Mazin, 1986; Callaway and Brinkman, 1989; Callaway and Massare, 1989). The presence of Mixosaurus in one of the richest ichthyosaur provinces, the Middle Triassic of Nevada (Merriam, 1908), has been difficult to establish. The history of this problem is very colorful and is the topic of this note together with the description of a new specimen from the Nevada Middle Triassic.