New field collections allow the study and description of Valvata juliae new species from the Pliocene upper Burgi Member of the Koobi Fora Formation of Kenya. The shell morphology of this species varies from trochospiral to planispiral to open coiled. The species is restricted to a short stratigraphic interval. Valvata juliae is considered as an invader of the Turkana Basin during a lacustrine transgression event. The open coiling of the species is interpreted as an ecophenotypic response to a high level of environmental stress caused by lake level fluctuations and emergence of delta systems. These environmental conditions brought Valvata juliae to extinction soon after it invaded the Turkana Basin.

A bed on Jbel Issoumour, near Alnif in southeastern Morocco, contains numerous complete trilobites. The bed is located stratigraphically at the base of the El Otfal Formation, immediately above a cliff-forming resistant unit known to local trilobite miners as the ‘grand calcaire’, and is latest Emsian or early Eifelian in age. The fauna exhibits an alpha trilobite diversity of at least eight species, including Erbenochile issoumourensis n. sp., Acanthopyge (Lobopyge) bassei n. sp., and Walliserops lindoei n. sp. The absence of lateral palpebral extensions in E. issoumourensis but their presence in the type species of Erbenochile, E. erbeni, when considered with other differences in the exceptionally large eyes of both species, supports the hypothesis that these palpebral structures functioned as eyeshades in E. erbeni but not in E. issoumourensis. Walliserops lindoei has a short, stout haft at the base of the trident anterior cephalic projection, which is the most characteristic feature of Walliserops. This projection in Walliserops primarily functioned as a deterrent to predators.

From the Middle Jurassic on, the Tethys basin opened westward; the existence of a Carribean corridor linking the European and Pacific realms now appears well supported by comparison of marine reptile assemblages (e.g., Gasparini and Fernández, 1997, 2005; Gasparini et al., 2000; Fernández and Iturralde-Vinent, 2000; Gasparini and Iturralde-Vinent, 2001, 2006; Gasparini et al., 2002). Marine transgression in Mexico began during the Callovian, as evidenced by the evaporites of the Minas Viejas Fm. However, microfossils and invertebrate assemblages indicate that the Mexican Gulf remained isolated from both the European Archipelago and the Pacific, at least temporarily, until the middle Berriasian; the Florida uplift and southward movement of Yucatan were proposed as possibly forming a barrier (Salvador et al., 1993; Adatte et al., 1994, 1996; Goldhammer, 1999; Goldhammer and Johnston, 2001; Gasparini and Iturralde-Vinent, 2006). After almost a decade of field work and examination of collections, the Late Jurassic marine reptile assemblage of north-east Mexico confirms the conclusions drawn from microfossils and invertebrates. Poorly diagnostic ichthyosaur remains, with various thalattosuchians, numerically dominate the assemblage. Sauropterygians are rare, mainly represented by large pliosaurids of unclear affinities, a few vertebrae attributed to elasmosaurids, and a unique cryptoclidid. Turtles are yet to be reported (Frey et al., 2002; Buchy et al., 2003, 2005b, 2006a–d; Buchy, 2007, 2008a, b; material currently under study).

We report on well-preserved upper and lower jaws found inside the body chambers of two specimens of Didymoceras nebrascense (Meek and Hayden, 1856) from the Upper Cretaceous Pierre Shale of the USA. The finds are described and compared to existing material, and their possible functions are discussed.

In 2001, Lenz and Kozłowska-Dawidziuk assigned the name Sagenograptus (species name S. arctos) to a late Wenlock retiolitid graptolite from Arctic Canada. We thank Rimma Sobolevskaya for subsequently informing us that the name Sagenograptus (species S. gagarini) had, already in 1962, been applied by Obut and Sobolevskaya to a Tremadoc dendroid graptolite from Taimyr. The generic name for the Arctic Wenlock retiolitid is here changed to Sagenograptoides.

We describe a Pennsylvanian (Late Carboniferous) Parapostibulla edrioasteroid that competed for living space with an encrusting cryptostome bryozoan on the brachiopod Composita. the colonial bryozoan grew faster than the solitary edrioasteroid, and the bryozoan increased its colony size by slowly encircling the edrioasteroid. Neither organism was able to overgrow the other, even where the margins became thick, and each had to accommodate the presence and possible defenses of the other. Evidence for defensive measures by edrioasteroids has not previously been reported, but this interaction does emphasize that edrioasteroids could not move away from severe crowding or overgrowth by other organisms.

Megaloptera is a small order of insects that is very rare in the fossil record. Jurochauliodes ponomarenkoi n. gen. n. sp. belonging to Chauliodinae (fishflies) within Corydalidae is described based on three larvae preserved in tuffaceous siltstones from the Middle Jurassic of Daohugou, China. It is not only the first fossil Megaloptera from China, but also the earliest Corydalidae. It differs from Cretochaulus lacustris Ponomarenko, 1976 in having a large body, head much longer than mandibles, mandibles wide, with a small apical tooth, meso- and metathorax half as long as prothorax, profemora apically widened, abdominal segment IX short, and lateral gills shorter than hind legs. This discovery indicates that fishflies originated at least in the Middle Jurassic.

A new species of the marsupial Peradectes is described from the early Eocene Nanjemoy Formation of Virginia. It is the first Tertiary marsupial known from the Atlantic Coastal Plain north of Florida. The smallest species of Peradectes, it is more closely related to species known from the Western Interior of North America than to contemporaneous European species.

An isolated ramus of the pterygotid eurypterid Jaekelopterus cf. howelli from the Early Devonian (Pragian) Beartooth Butte Formation (Cottonwood Canyon, north-western Wyoming) is described. Pterygotid taxonomy and synonymy is briefly discussed with the genera Pterygotus, Acutiramus and Jaekelopterus shown to be potential synonyms. The use of cheliceral denticulation patterns as a generic-level character is discouraged in light of variations within genera and its unsuitability as a major characteristic in the other eurypterid families.

Fossil isopod crustaceans in the suborder Phreatoicidea have a known stratigraphic range from the Carboniferous to the Jurassic. Until now, all Mesozoic records of this group were thought to occur in fresh water habitats. A new phreatoicidean isopod fossil of the Triassic Luoping marine fauna, Yunnan Province, China, is described. The new species, based on several exceptionally complete specimens, is assigned to the genus Protamphisopus Nicholls and the family Amphisopidae Nicholls. This Chinese record is the first report of a Mesozoic-age phreatoicidean isopod outside of Gondwanan terranes, requiring a revision of known biogeographic patterns of the Phreatoicidea. Whether this record is from a marine habitat or is the result of a secondary deposition is not certain. Sottyella Racheboef, Schram and Vidal from the Carboniferous (Stephanian) Lagerstätte of Montceaules-Mines that was assigned to this suborder may be a decapod. Therefore, it has no relationship to this new species.

Toriyama and Kanmera (1968), in one of their studies of fusulines from the Rat Buri Limestone, Thailand, proposed two Permian fusuline foraminifer genera, Thailandina and Neothailandina. Based on these two genera they established the subfamily Thailandininae and placed it in the family Neoschwagerinidae. the tests of these genera are invariably replaced by secondary mineralization to a finegrained mosaic calcite such as seen in specimens of Staffellidae. the thailandinid wall was apparently originally composed of a tectum and keriotheca.

Alphacrinus mansfieldi new genus and species from the Middle Tremadoc Series (Early Ibexian), near the base of the Ordovician, is the oldest known disparid crinoid. A new family, Alphacrinidae, receives this monospecific genus. Alphacrinus's character mosaic includes primitive traits unknown among other disparids, auguring for disparid origin from a more complexly plated, less standardized antecedent, and echoing the evolutionary progression documented for camerates and cladids. Disparids are diagnosed as those crinoids expressing an arm-like branch from the C ray. Morphologic progression indicates this distinctive trait evolved by modification of CD interray plates, not as an outgrowth from the C ray.

We provide clarification of the nature of the junction between cup and arms in Titanocrinus sumralli Guensberg and Sprinkle 2003, accompanied by an emended reconstruction. This morphological feature of so basal a species informs further phylogenetic studies.

The Paleogene Order Taeniodonta Cope, 1876—peculiar heavy-bodied mammals, some with evergrowing cheek teeth—are grouped with the Late Cretaceous eutherian Cimolestes Marsh, 1889, along with a host of other taxa in a superordinal group, the Cimolesta. Taeniodonts were thought to have arisen from Cimolestes indirectly, through Paleocene Procerberus Sloan and Van Valen, 1965. The recently described Paleocene Alveugena Eberle, 1999, until now known only from the upper dentition, has been put forth as a transitional form between cimolestids and taeniodonts on phylogenetic and biostratigraphic grounds. An older taeniodont, the Late Cretaceous Schowalteria Fox and Naylor, 2003, has since been described, complicating taeniodont origins. We describe here a lower jaw that we refer to Alveugena from the lower part of the Ludlow Member of the Fort Union Formation in North Dakota. The lower jaw comes from strata of early Early Paleocene age (Puercan 1 North American Land Mammal Age) ~8.5 m above a Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, identified using palynological criteria. A cladistic analysis is here presented using new data on Schowalteria and Alveugena, added to that of Cimolestes, Procerberus formicarum Sloan and Van Valen, 1965, P. grandis Middleton and Dewar, 2004, and Onychodectes. This analysis revealed Alveugena as the sister taxon of the taeniodonts but with a closer relationship to Cimolestes than Procerberus, suggesting that taeniodonts evolved from a Cimolestes-like ancestor. We discuss the age relations of early taeniodonts and related taxa and propose a scenario of ancestor-descendent relations that minimizes, but does not eliminate, implied stratigraphic gaps.