Boreholes in Cambrian shells are rarely reported but are a potentially significant source of information on levels of predation in early metazoan communities. This paper documents boreholes in a wide variety of Cambrian organisms. Particular attention is devoted to two species of the inarticulate brachiopod Linnarssonia (informally L. sp. A and L. sp. B) from the Middle Cambrian of southern Sweden (Brantevik, Forsemölla) and Bornholm (Læså, ⊘leå). Both successful and abortive holes occur, and both brachial and pedicle valves were attacked. Almost 20 percent of the valves of Linnarssonia sp. B from ⊘leå have successful boreholes, whereas in L. sp. A from Brantevik only 1.4 percent of the valves are bored. The proportion of successful bores in brachial and pedicle valves also varies widely, from 0.8:1 in L. sp. A (Forsemölla) to 5.8:1 in L. sp. B (Læså), although taphonomic bias caused by preferential removal of pedicle valves of L. sp. B may have distorted this ratio. The abundance and distribution of abortive holes also shows variation, with a maximum of 16.3 percent of L. sp. B from Forsemölla and a minimum of 1 percent in L. sp. B from Læså. Preference for brachial or pedicle valves among abortive holes is variable, ranging from 0.3:1 in L. sp. B (Læså) to 6.9:1 in the same species from ⊘leå. With one exception (L. sp. B from Forsemölla) successful bores always outnumber abortives, but the ratio in brachial and pedicle valves varies widely with a maximum in favor of successful bores being reached in brachial valves of L. sp. A from Læså (6:1). Boreholes are nonrandomly distributed. In L. sp. A and L sp. B successful attacks on brachial valves were concentrated in a central zone. Attacks were more scattered in the pedicle valves, although in L. sp. A boreholes tended to occur on the left-hand side. Abortive and successful bores in the enigmatic fossil Mobergella holsti, from the Lower Cambrian of Skäggenäs, southern Sweden, show a conspicuous concentration in the apical region. In addition, boreholes in Lower Cambrian material from Australia (the pseudobrachiopod Aroonia, the tommotiid Micrina) and eastern Siberia (brachiopods, and possibly echinoderms and the tommotiid Lapworthella) are reported. All these bores are attributed to the activity of predators, whose systematic affinities remain uncertain. Holes in tubicolous torellellids from northern Tamdytau, however, may alternatively represent attachment scars of other torellellids.

A deep core from Warren County, Ohio, has yielded numerous fossils of Cambrian age. The specimens, which are among the first recorded from Cambrian rocks of Ohio, suggest revisions in the inferred ages of the Eau Claire and Mount Simon Formations in the Cincinnati Arch region. Trilobites indicative of Dresbachian (late Middle Cambrian to early Late Cambrian) and possibly Franconian (Late Cambrian) age are present in the upper Eau Claire Formation. By implication, the underlying Mount Simon Formation must be of earlier Dresbachian age or perhaps older. Identified trilobites from the Eau Claire Formation seem to be characteristic of inner-shelf lithofacies of Laurentia. Other body fossils from the Eau Claire Formation include inarticulate brachiopods and a graptolite. Body fossils in the lower Knox Dolomite include trilobite sclerites and echinoderm ossicles. Trace fossils are present in both units.

More than 40 species of siliceous microfossils are present in both T-3 core Fl-437 (Cretaceous) and in core Fl-422 (Eocene) from the central Arctic Ocean. Previous identifications of the silicoflagellates were the basis of the ages for these cores, but diatoms of the two cores, previously unidentified, suggest that Fl-437 could be as old as Campanian rather than middle to late Maastrichtian and that Fl-422 may be early to middle Eocene rather than middle to late Eocene. Identification of archaeomonads and ebridians completes the cataloging of the known biosiliceous assemblages of the older Arctic Ocean.

Strong seasonality for the Late Cretaceous and early Cenozoic Arctic Ocean is suggested from alternating layers of vegetative cells and resting spores in both cores. The abundance of fossils is interpreted as evidence for seasonal upwelling in a nutrient-rich and much warmer Arctic Ocean. No evidence of seasonal ice or of ice-rafting is present. The profound climate change from the warmer older Arctic Ocean to the ice-covered condition of the present occurred after deposition of the sediment of Fl-422.

Three novel features are described in steinkerns of Hypomphalocirrus rugosus Linsley from the Middle Devonian Rogers City Limestone of Michigan. The first feature is located about one-half a volution adapertural of the terminal septum. It has the appearance of a typical molluscan muscle attachment scar and is interpreted as such. The two other features are more enigmatic. They have a less stereotyped appearance and location. The first is interpreted as a field of mantle point-attachments and the other as a product of partial shell dissolution. Comparisons with extant and fossil molluscs confirm that the two features ascribed to biologic origins are within the scope of molluscan soft-part and shell attachment morphologies.

The Chesterian (Upper Mississippian) Imo Formation in north-central Arkansas contains an abundant, diverse, and well-preserved gastropod fauna, comprising 35 species referrable to 21 genera and subgenera. Bellerophontaceans and pleurotomariaceans show the greatest species diversity. New taxa proposed include: Euphemites chesterensis, E. whirligigi, Retispira yochelsoni, Patellilabia rhombadella, P. sulcata, Straparollus (Euomphalus) konobasis, S. (E.) variabilis, Trepospira (Angyomphalus) desultoria, Glabrocingulum (Glabrocingulum) parasolum, G. (G.) parvanodum, G. (G.) coronulum, Naticopsis (Marmolatella) macgordoni, N. (M.) imoensis, Globozyga mediocris, and Girtyspira microspirula.

Relicts of color patterns are present on four taxa. Repair of broken shells is common. Borings of acrothoracic barnacles and possibly that of a gastropod are present. Coprolites with gastropods attached may indicate a coprophagous habit, only grazing on the algae and bacteria growing on the coprolite, or may just be a circumstance of preservation.

Heterochrony is an important component of evolutionary change in the shell sculpture of turritelline gastropods from Paleocene and Eocene sediments of the Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plains. A survey of heterochronic modes in these gastropods indicates that peramorphosis is dominant over paedomorphosis, a result counter to the pattern previously reported in gastropods and most other groups. Although lack of ontogenetic age data makes firm conclusions impossible at present, peramorphic patterns may have been produced by more than a single process. Possible explanations for the dominance of peramorphosis in the evolution of shell form in this group include a bigger role for intrinsic constraint in controlling shell form versus soft-part anatomy, selection for larger shell size, and the chance discovery of only peramorphosis in this study.

The Wenonah Formation of New Jersey yields an ammonite fauna comprising Menuites portlocki (Sharpe, 1855), Placenticeras placenta (DeKay, 1828), P. minor n. sp., Nostoceras (Nostoceras) puzosiforme n. sp., Nostoceras (Nostoceras) aff. N. colubriformis Stephenson, 1941, Didymoceras n. sp., Didymoceras spp., Parasolenoceras sp., Baculites cf. B. scotti Cobban, 1958, Baculites sp., and Trachyscaphites pulcherrimus (Roemer, 1841). Although commonly regarded as lower Maastrichtian by micropaleontologists, the presence of M. portlocki and T. pulcherrimus is an indicator of upper, but not uppermost, Campanian in a northwest European sense, and the presence of Baculites cf. B. scotti suggests uppermost middle Campanian in terms of the Western Interior provincial substages.

The ostracode assemblage of the Arkadelphia Formation, upper Maastrichtian, of southwestern Arkansas is characterized by a well-preserved, relatively diverse, and abundant fauna representing 36 podocopid species and an undetermined number of species of the platycopid genus Cytherella. Thirteen of these account for 85 percent of the fauna. The dominant forms are Cytherella spp., Brachycythere rhomboidalis (Berry, 1925), Haplocytheridea renfroensis Crane, 1965, Haplocytheridea bruceclarki (Israelsky, 1929), and Brachycythere ovata (Berry, 1925), which account for about 57 percent of the specimens found. Other species that are less common, but are characteristic of the Arkadelphia, are Antibythocypris macropora (Alexander, 1929), Ascetoleberis hazardi (Israelsky, 1929), Aversovalva fossata (Skinner, 1956), Brachycythere ledaforma (Israelsky, 1929), Curfsina communis (Israelsky, 1929), Cytheromorpha arbenzi (Skinner, 1956), Escharacytheridea micropunctata (Alexander, 1929), and Veenia arachoides (Berry, 1925). The ostracode assemblage indicates that the Arkadelphia was deposited in the inner sublittoral zone.

The species Veenia parallelopora (Alexander, 1929) and Brachycythere foraminosa Alexander, 1934, are restricted to the Arkadelphia Formation and allow correlation with other Gulf Coastal Plain Upper Cretaceous units. A new ostracode interval zone, the Veenia parallelopora Zone, is proposed. This zone divides the Platycosta lixula Zone.

Calcareous planktic microfossils reported from the Arkadelphia and its correlatives in the Veenia parallelopora Zone indicate that these deposits are late Maastrichtian in age, not middle Maastrichtian as some authors have thought.

Foliaster transversus n. gen. and sp. (Echinodermata: Asteroidea) is assigned to the Ordovician through Devonian family Palasteriscidae; the other genera included in the family are Palasteriscus and Platanaster. Platanaster is redescribed; both it and Foliaster are thought to have been suspension feeders that extended their arms into the water column. Ampullar basins in both were external; there are no podial pores. The strongly petaloid arm of Foliaster with widely separated podial basins is unique.

Two competing phylogenies have been offered for the origin of stelleroids, one treating edrioasteroids as ancestral, the other favoring crinoids. In the latter hypothesis, the Palasteriscidae is the primitive asteroid family, and Platanaster is an example of the first true asteroids. Both hypotheses are here considered to lack adequate support; stelleroid origins remain problematic.

Crinoids are reported from the New Zealand Paleocene for the first time and include rare articulated columnals and brachia with pinnules. These specimens of Metacrinus sp. (Isocrinidae) are present in basal, fossiliferous, coarse-grained, quartzose sediments of the Kauru Formation, a few centimeters above schist basement, in the Kakanui Valley, North Otago. The crinoid-bearing facies probably represents earliest onlap or a storm surge onto a wave cut platform; sedimentological and paleontological evidence indicates a moderate- to high-energy environment. The crinoids were most probably buried rapidly while alive or shortly after death. The presence of isocrinids in the Kauru Formation and younger Paleogene strata reveals that the supposed shift of some isocrinids from a shallower to a deeper environment actually occurred much later in the Paleogene, and not the Late Cretaceous as previously supposed. Associated molluscs indicate a mid to upper “Wangaloan” Stage (local), equivalent to mid Paleocene. A summary of the New Zealand crinoid fossil record is presented.

The Dayton, Osgood, and Laurel Formations and the Euphemia, Springfield, and basal part of the Cedarville Dolomites near the axis of the Cincinnati Arch in northeast Preble County, Ohio, belong in the uppermost part of the Ozarkodina sagitta rhenana to lower part of the Ozarkodina? crassa Chronozone and are late early to middle Wenlockian in age. The Dayton–Cedarville succession on the eastern flank of the Cincinnati Arch in north-central Greene County, Ohio, belongs in the uppermost part of the Pterospathodus celloni to upper part of the Ancoradella ploeckensis Chronozone and is late Llandoverian to early middle Ludlovian in age.

The sea transgressed across the exposed and eroded Brassfield Formation to begin deposition of the Dayton Formation on the eastern flank of the Cincinnati Arch in Greene County, Ohio, during the late Llandoverian and completely flooded all of west-central Ohio by the late early Wenlockian. The region remained covered by a sea of fluctuating depth during deposition of the Dayton Formation–Cedarville Dolomite succession from the Wenlockian through early middle Ludlovian.

Kockelella walliseri (Helfrich) evolved from K. ranuliformis (Walliser) during the middle Wenlockian (upper part of Ozarkodina sagitta rhenana Chronozone) by development of a lateral process adjacent to the cusp on the Pa element and by minor modification of the Pb element and some of the ramiform elements. Specimens from upper Llandoverian and lower Wenlockian strata previously assigned to K. walliseri belong to a different species, Kockelella sp. A Fordham, 1991. The evolutionary trends in the K. walliseri lineage, progressive restriction of the basal cavity and increasing development of the length of the lateral processes in the Pa element, parallel the trends in the K. amsdeni–K. stauros–K. variabilis lineage and resulted in the divergence of Kockelella cf. K. stauros Bischoff, 1986, from the main lineage in the middle Wenlockian.

An Early Pennsylvanian tetrapod trackway, referred to Notalacerta missouriensis Butts, was found in the Rockcastle Sandstone Member (Westphalian A, Upper Carboniferous) of the Lee Formation in McCreary County, Kentucky. Terrestrial characteristics of the trackway, such as digit length, claw marks, gait, and tail drag, suggest that it was made by a member of the primitive reptile family Protorothyrididae. If identified correctly, this is the oldest known reptile trackway in North America. The animal that made the trackway was approximately 0.4 m in length. The pes tracks are slightly larger and set slightly wider than the manus tracks; digits are elongated and slender, and the fourth digit of the pes is the longest. Whereas the slender, long toes indicate a terrestrial form, the gait was more advanced than the sprawling gait typical of the most primitive tetrapods.

When not found with fossil bone, gastroliths (fossil gizzard stones) may be hard to identify. One attribute that is potentially useful is their high degree of surface polish, presumably caused by abrasion in the animal's gizzard. A novel video laser light scattering instrument is used to characterize the surface roughness of suspected moa gastroliths, as well as similar (non-gastrolith) quartz rocks that were polished by ocean waves. The instrument is fairly successful at distinguishing between the two types of samples.

The shoo fly Complex of Late Devonian and older Paleozoic age is a regionally extensive rock assemblage in the northern Sierra Nevada of northern California. It consists chiefly of a coherent unit of phyllite, quartzose sandstone, and chert, and a melange unit (Hannah and Moores, 1986). Several limestone lenses in the Taylorsville area comprise the Montgomery Limestone (Diller, 1892, 1908; McMath, 1958; Figure 1). The Montgomery was long considered to be Silurian, largely on the basis of corals, brachiopods, and cephalopods (Diller, 1892, 1908; McMath, 1958; Berry and Boucot, 1970; Merriam, 1972). However, recent analyses of the biota indicate an Ashgill (middle Maysvillian–Gamachian) age (Boucot and Potter, 1977; Harris, personal commun. cited in Hannah and Moores, 1986, p. 790; Potter et al., 1990b; present study).

Anapteris van winkle (1919) is a distinctive corbulid genus characterized by the left valve having a peculiar wing-like flare anteriorly and both valves having the posterior area set off by a prominent umbonal keel (Vokes, 1945; Keen, 1969). Heretofore this genus has been known only from the type species, A. regalis Van Winkle (1919; 1921), which has been recorded only from the upper middle Eocene (Bartonian) Piney Point Formation in Virginia (Ward, 1985). The purpose of this note is to record the second known occurrence of Anapteris. The genus is present in the lower middle Eocene of southern California, where it is represented by Corbula wardii Hanna (1927).

Several authors (Berry, 1916, 1931; Brooks, 1955; Cockerell, 1908, 1910) have reported evidence of damage by leaf-cutter bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) from the Tertiary of the United States. These have been predominantly Eocene in age. During field investigations (1990-1991), four further fossil plant specimens with possible leaf-cutter bee damage were discovered from the middle Eocene sediments of the Klondike Mountain Formation near Republic (Ferry County), Washington (Figure 1), and are reported here to draw attention to the common occurrence of these kinds of insect “trace fossils” in the paleobotanical record.

The james ross basin, situated on the eastern margin of the Antarctic Peninsula, has yielded an extensive fauna of decapod crustaceans spanning Late Cretaceous through Eocene time. To date, 28 species in 22 genera and 18 families have been described (Feldmann, 1992; Feldmann, Tshudy, and Thomson, 1993), making this the most diverse fossil decapod fauna in the Southern Hemisphere. Within the basin, Seymour Island alone contains rocks of the Eocene age La Meseta Formation from which seven species of crabs, one galatheid, and one species of callianassid ghost shrimp have been described (Feldmann and Zinsmeister, 1984; Feldmann and Wilson, 1988; Feldmann, 1992). The fauna of the La Meseta is remarkable also because, although the organisms are preserved in rocks deposited in moderate- to high-energy, shallow-water habitats (Elliot and Trautman, 1982), many of the species represent early occurrences of taxa with living descendants that are characteristic of deeper water, lower latitude habitats (Zinsmeister and Feldmann, 1984).

The extensive fauna of vertebrates from the Lower Devonian Water Canyon Formation of Utah was initially reported and described by Branson and Mehl (1930, 1931), and subsequently described in detail by Denison (1952, 1953, 1958, 1967). A major part of the fauna consists of heterostracans, particularly pteraspidids (Denison, 1953, 1967), and to date six species are known from the Water Canyon Formation. This fauna comes from the upper Emsian and is similar in age to that of the Beartooth Butte Formation of Wyoming and Montana, and also to faunas recently reported from Nevada and California (Elliott, 1989; Ilyes and Elliott, 1991, 1992).