While preparing materials for the pentameroid portion of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology revision of the brachiopod volumes, problems were encountered with four enigmatic genera: Rugolepyros Lenz, 1989; Aenigmastrophia Boucot, 1971; Spondylostrophia Kulkov, 1967; and Stricklandistrophia Sapelnikov and Rukavishnikova, 1975.

Three new species and genera of pteraspidids (Agnatha, Heterostraci), Tuberculaspis elyensis, Pirumaspis lancasteri, and Lamiaspis longiripa, are described from the Sevy Dolomite, east-central Nevada. They form part of a vertebrate fauna of typical Early Devonian aspect that indicates a correlation with previously described faunas from the Beartooth Butte and Water Canyon Formations of Utah and Wyoming, thus improving the known distribution and diversity of these faunas. Correlation with an accurately dated fauna in Death Valley, California, enables this fauna to be dated to the late Emsian (inversus–serotinus Zones).

In 1904 R. Lasswitz described a collection of Cretaceous ammonites from Texas, most of which were collected in 1846 by Ferdinand Roemer. Apart from the historical value of the collection, Lasswitz described several new species, which also makes the collection important from a taxonomic point of view. According to Lasswitz, in his plate descriptions, all the original (figured) specimens of the (Roemer) collection were housed in the “Königlich Geologisches Museum” in Breslau. Adkins (1928) in his Handbook of Texas Cretaceous Fossils referred to the collection at “University of Breslau” and figured several specimens that he had photographed prior to 1928. He also made casts of some of the specimens (see, e.g., Young, 1979, p. 52).

During preparation of a new species of Allodesmus from the Montesano Formation (UWBM 75640; presently being described by the writer) at the University of Washington Burke Memorial Museum in 1984, preparator Bev Witte found 14 monospecific elasmobranch teeth (UWBM 75641) in the matrix encasing the specimen. Most of the teeth were found in the matrix surrounding the cervical vertebrae; a few teeth were found near the skull (Figure 1). Unfortunately, the precise location of each tooth in relation to the pinniped skeleton was not recorded during their air-abrasive removal from the indurated matrix. It is known that the teeth were deposited no more than one or two centimeters from the skeleton. One of the matrix blocks freed from the pinniped still contains two teeth that line the inner surface of a mold of an unidentified Allodesmus bone. This is the first published occurrence of a shark from the Montesano Formation. The occurrence extends the range of Squalus occidentalis northward along the northeastern Pacific margin into Washington State, and it is also one of the highest biostratigraphic occurrences for this species. The discovery is additionally noteworthy because of the depositional relationship of the Allodesmus and Squalus, and because tooth marks occur on the Allodesmus skull. The occurrence therefore has taphonomic and paleoecological implications.

Recently, aguirre urreta and Riccardi (1988) have shown that Calliscaphites andinus Leanza, 1970, belongs in Myloceras Spath, and raised Calliscaphites as a subgenus for crioceratid coiled members of this genus. In doing so, they noted (p. 611) that, although Whitehouse (1926) had previously described Aleteceras as a genus for crioceratid coiled species that are now (Wright, 1957) included in Myloceras, none of these species appeared to have been unequivocally shown to have a crioceratid mode of coiling throughout life. This view had been strengthened by their reading of McNamara (1978). They did, however, note that “crioceratid coiling in Aleteceras would imply validation of this taxon as a senior synonym of Calliscaphites.”

Eutherian tarsal bones of Late Cretaceous age are reported for the first time from sedimentary beds intercalated with the Deccan Traps of peninsular India. The tarsal bones, represented mainly by calcanea and astragali, occur in association with dental elements of palaeoryctid mammals: Deccanolestes hislopi Prasad and Sahni and D. robustus Prasad, Jaeger, Sahni, Gheerbrant, and Khajuria. Two size variants in the tarsals correlate well with the teeth of D. hislopi and D. robustus. Morphologically, the tarsal complex of Deccanolestes is quite different from that of other Cretaceous eutherians for which the relevant anatomy is known (Protungulatum and Procerberus). Rather, the tarsals of Deccanolestes exhibit a close affinity to the tarsal morphology of Archonta. A large number of tarsal characters indicate a highly arboreal mode of life for these animals. Presence of such specialized animals as early as the Cretaceous suggests that mammals had already diversified their locomotor adaptations by this time.

The paleontological Research Institution (PRI) was founded in 1932 by Gilbert Dennison Harris (1864-1952), professor of geology at Cornell University from 1894 to 1934. Approaching retirement, Harris was concerned about the fate of his large fossil collections and library, as well as the continuation of his two journals, Bulletins of American Paleontology (begun in 1895) and Palaeontographica Americana (begun in 1916). He therefore founded his own scientific enterprise, built a building for it behind his house, and received a charter as an educational institution from the State of New York in 1936. The Institution moved to its current location across Cayuga Lake from Cornell in 1968.

The genus Collarothyris was erected by Modzalevskaya in 1970 (p. 155) with Meristella canaliculata Wenjukow, 1899, as type species. Wenjukow (1899) did not designate a type; however, on p. 143 he gave the measurements of two specimens, one of which was figured on Plate VII, figure 21, and designated holotype by Modzalevskaya (1970, p. 156). Unfortunately, this specimen is lost (see also Nikiforova, Modzalevskaya, and Bassett, 1985). Further checking of the collections of the Geological Museum of the Geological Institute of Science, Kiev (Ukrania), resulted in finding, among Wenjukow's (1899) original collection, one specimen (No. 367/165) labelled as Meristella canaliculata and whose measurements coincide with one of those given by Wenjukow (1899, p. 143). This specimen is here figured (Figure 1) and selected lectotype of Collarothyris canaliculata (Wenjukow).

In the past 25 years, I have regularly observed floating shells at various localities in the Dutch Wadden Sea. Such shells start to float with the incoming tide and with their concave side up. Bivalve shells float like a boat and are transported in this way over short distances (meters to tens of meters) towards the high tide line. In order to study this phenomenon in more detail, I selected a tidal flat bordering the southern part of Texel, the westernmost barrier island of the Wadden Sea. I visited this tidal flat daily during incoming tides from 8 to 18 October 1992. Presence or absence of floating shells on the incoming floodwater was noted over a stretch of about 250 m.

Ecphora is one of the most easily recognized gastropod genera in late Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene marine formations in the southeastern United States. Its generally large size, strong spiral ribs, and brown, calcitic exterior are much prized by fossil collectors. However, despite speculations by Petuch (1988), its evolutionary origins have remained obscure. The present shell microstructural and mineralogical evidence suggests that the earliest ecphoras were entirely aragonitic and that the thick calcitic outer layer of the later Miocene and Pliocene species originated as a thin calcitic crust on the crests of the ribs of a latest Oligocene or earliest Miocene species.