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Megatherium urbinai sp. nov. is a new megatheriine ground sloth from Pleistocene beds of the Sacaco area and Tres Ventanas Cave, Peru. This new species is referred to the genus Megatherium based primarily on humeral, femoral, and astragalar morphology. It is characterized by various features, such as a strongly reduced metacarpal-carpal-complex (MCC) and a reduced, oval scaphoid facet of the MCC located at the medial extremity of the bone that does not contact without the McII facet. The distal side of the unciform bears an undivided articular surface for the metacarpals III-V.

• Read more about A new species of Megatherium (Mammalia: Xenarthra: Megatheriidae) from the Pleistocene of Sacaco and Tres Ventanas, Peru

Species belonging to genera of three families of the Proetida (Proetidae, Rorringtoniidae and Toernquistiidae) are described from the upper Ashgill of southern Sweden, and the same or related species noted from the adjacent parts of northern and central Europe. Proetidae are represented by Paraproetus brevifrons (Angelin), Ogmocnemis irregularis Kielan, Ogmocnemis jaanussoni sp. nov. and Parvigena putealis sp. nov.; it is argued that all belong to the Cornuproetinae, not Tropidocoryphinae where they were previously classified.

• Read more about Late Ordovician and early Silurian Proetida (Trilobita) from north-western and central Europe

A new galesaurid cynodont, Progalesaurus lootsbergensis gen. et sp. nov., is described on the basis of a well-preserved skull, lower jaw, right scapula and left atlantal neural arch. Autapomorphies of Progalesaurus include postcanine teeth bearing numerous mesial and distal accessory cusps that flank a recurved main cusp, a post-temporal fenestra bordered by the squamosal ventrally and a large external naris.

• Read more about A new galesaurid (Therapsida: Cynodontia) from the Lower Triassic of South Africa

Until recently, the rhynchonelliform (articulated) brachiopod fauna from the Brazilian continental shelf (western South Atlantic) was represented only by the endemic species Bouchardia rosea (Mawe), reported from coastal waters of the states of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The present study, based on samples from coastal (<30 m), shelf, and continental slope waters (99-485 m), documents the South Atlantic brachiopod fauna and shows that this fauna is more widespread, diverse, and cosmopolitan than previously thought.

• Read more about Recent brachiopods from the southern Brazilian shelf: palaeontological and biogeographical implications

The contractile stalks of graptoloid zooids are preserved as organic carbon residues in thecae of the middle Llandovery graptoloid graptolites Rastrites geinitzii and Neolagarograptus? sp. from the Aizpute-41 core, Latvia. The contractile stalks are surrounded by equant pyrite crystals, resulting in three-dimensional preservation of the graptolite rhabdosomes, and are associated with sediment of similar composition to, and derived from, the adjacent matrix.

• Read more about Preservation of soft tissues in Silurian graptolites from Latvia

Extensive sampling of Bathonian sediments from localities across southern and central England has produced over 8000 neoselachian teeth. These comprise diverse faunas, with over 25 species being represented in total, most of them previously undescribed. Seventeen new species and seven new genera are named: Palaeoscyllium tenuidens sp. nov., Praeproscyllium oxoniensis gen. et sp. nov., Eypea leesi gen. et sp. nov., Proheterodontus sylvestris gen. et sp. nov., Paracestracion bellis sp. nov., Palaeobrachaelurus mussetti sp. nov., Heterophorcynus microdon gen. et sp.

• Read more about Neoselachian sharks and rays from the British Bathonian (Middle Jurassic)

Reefs were decimated by the Frasnian/Famennian (Late Devonian) mass extinction event (371 Ma), and are assumed to have survived only as depauperate calcimicrobial communities dominated by disaster taxa. Description of Famennian proximal reef-slope communities within the Windjana Limestone, Canning Basin, north-western Australia, shows that, notwithstanding the loss of large metazoans, novel ecologies were established in this setting by a rich biota of survivor and progenitor taxa.

• Read more about Palaeoecology of a post-extinction reef: Famennian (Late Devonian) of the Canning Basin, north-western Australia

Galeate acritarchs are a major component of Late Cambrian and Early Ordovician palynological assemblages. The populations of galeate acritarchs from the Cambrian-Ordovician transition section in borehole Nl-2 of the Algerian Sahara show a gradual increase in process length and in complexity of the process structures through the succession. While the number of striate elements at the process base, the number of distal ramifications, and the number of membranes between the processes increases progressively, the central body diameter shows only minor variation within the succession.

• Read more about Population dynamics of galeate acritarchs at the Cambrian&ndash;Ordovician transition in the Algerian Sahara

Moderately well-preserved radiolarian assemblages are described from bedded cherts south of Mae Hong Son, north-west Thailand. Twenty species and subspecies are identified, including one new species (Archocyrtium sashidai Feng sp. nov.). The assemblages belong to the middle Early Carboniferous Albaillella indensis and Eostylodictya rota zones. The new data suggest that there was a pelagic basin between the Shan-Thai terrane and Gondwana during the Early Carboniferous.

• Read more about Early Carboniferous radiolarians from north-west Thailand: palaeogeographical implications

A new genus of ginkgoalean woody branch, Pecinovicladus kvaceki gen. et sp. nov., is described from the Upper Cretaceous (mid to late Cenomanian) Peruc-Korycany Formation at Pecinov Quarry, near Prague, Czech Republic. Eighteen branch specimens, anatomically preserved as charcoal, the product of wildfire, occur as allochthonous assemblages in intertidal facies and as parauthochthonous assemblages in supratidal salt marsh facies. Primary branches range from 7-13 mm in diameter, and are composed of a central, parenchymatous pith, a medial pycnoxylic xylem layer, and an outer periderm layer.

• Read more about A new anatomically preserved ginkgoalean genus from the Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian) of the Czech Republic