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The stratigraphical position of the Dera Bugti area (Baluchistan, Pakistan), which yielded the remains described herein, is discussed. Dental and postcranial material attributed to Bugtirhinus praecursor gen. et sp. nov., from the lower Miocene (MN 3) of the same area, is described. This species is the oldest and most primitive member of elasmotheriine group within Rhinocerotidae (Mammalia). A new diagnosis is established for the Elasmotheriini.

• Read more about A new Rhinoceros from the lower Miocene of the Bugti Hills, Baluchistan, Pakistan: the earliest elasmotheriine

A method is outlined in which woods produced by deciduous and evergreen coniferopsids may be distinguished from one another on the basis of a quantitative analysis of growth ring anatomy. In this method the diameter of successive tracheid cells was measured across growth rings in modern coniferopsid woods, viewed using standard transverse anatomical sections. The cumulative algebraic sum of each cell's deviation from the mean was then calculated for each growth ring increment and plotted as a zero-trending curve (CSDM curve).

• Read more about A method to distinguish between woods produced by evergreen and deciduous coniferopsids on the basis of growth ring anatomy: a new palaeoecological tool

Fourier outline shape analysis is a powerful tool for the morphometric study of two-dimensional form in organisms lacking many biologically homologous landmarks. Several improvements to the method are described herein; these modifications are incorporated into the new computer programs HANGLE, HMATCH and HCURVE. First, automated tracing of outlines using image capture software, although desirable, results in high frequency pixel 'noise' that can corrupt the Fourier analysis. Program HANGLE eliminates this noise using optional and variable levels of outline smoothing.

• Read more about Improvements to the method of Fourier shape analysis as applied in morphometric studies

Vertebrate remains are reported from the Emsian-Eifelian Floresta Formation and the Late Devonian (?Frasnian) Cuche Formation of north-eastern Colombia. The material from the Floresta Formation is associated with a marine invertebrate fauna and includes an arthrodire and probably a rhenanid. Several vertebrate-bearing localities are recorded from the Cuche Formation; vertebrates occur with plant remains and lingulid fragments. They include an acanthodian (Cheiracanthoides? sp.), a chondrichthyan (Antarctilamna? sp.), placoderms (Bothriolepis sp., Asterolepis? sp.

• Read more about Devonian vertebrates from Colombia

The status of the temnospondyl family Capitosauridae is reviewed. Only by the inclusion of the genera Mastodonsaurus and Eocyclotosaurus can this group be considered monophyletic. This view is based on a range of robust characters which in combination constitute the most parsimonious hypothesis. The traditional view that Mastodonsaurus and Eocyclotosaurus are sister taxa of Benthosuchus is demonstrated to be based on highly variable and/or homoplastic features, whose ancestral condition is moreover uncertain.

• Read more about The origin and intrarelationships of Triassic capitosaurid amphibians

Back-reef ecologies within the celebrated mixed carbonate-siliciclastic Late Devonian (late Frasnian) Pillara Limestone of Windjana Gorge, in the Canning Basin, Western Australia, are re-interpreted as being dominated by microbial communities. Proposed microbialites are expressed as weakly-laminated, fenestral micrite, that show unsupported primary voids, peloidal textures, disseminated bioclastic debris, and traces of microfilaments.

• Read more about Palaeoecology of a Late Devonian back reef: Canning Basin, Western Australia

'Lydekkerina' putterilli Broom from the Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone (Middle Beaufort Group, South Africa) is shown to be a paedomorphic rhinesuchid (Broomistega putterilli gen. nov.) rather than a lydekkerinid or juvenile stage of the rhinesuchid Uranocentrodon, as previously presumed. The most conspicuous characters, not related to its paedomorphic condition, include the shape of the parietals and the structure of the parasphenoid body and exoccipitals.

• Read more about A relict rhinesuchid (Amphibia: Temnospondyli) from the Lower Triassic of South Africa

A new rhynchosaur, Hyperodapedon huenei sp. nov., is described from the Upper Triassic Santa Maria Formation of the Parana Basin, Brazil. The holotype is an almost complete skull and mandible, collected at Inhamanda, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The diagnosis of the genus Hyperodapedon Huxley is revised to include not only H. huxleyi Lydekker and H. gordoni Huxley (as generally accepted), but also the new species described here, various specimens usually assigned to 'Scaphonyx fischeri' Woodward, and 'S'. sanjuanensis Sill. H. huenei sp. nov.

• Read more about A new species of the Late Triassic rhynchosaur Hyperodapedon from the Santa Maria Formation of south Brazil

Ten species of Late Cambrian trilobites occur in a limestone lens at the base of the Val d'Homs Formation in the Cesse Brook section at Ferrals-les-Montagnes in the Montagne Noire. Associated in this lens are species referred to Ammagnostus (Ammagnostus), Kormagnostus?, Olentella, Stigmatoa, Shengia, Abharella, Proceratopyge (Proceratopyge), Prochuangia, Palaeadotes and Paraacidaspis. Of these, Stigmatoa courtessolei and Paraacidaspis ultima are described as new species.

• Read more about Early Late Cambrian trilobites of Australo-Sinian aspect from the Montagne Noire, southern France

Palaeoberesellids, tubular septate dasycladacean algae hitherto only described from the Upper Palaeozoic, have been discovered in the Late Jurassic Arab-D Reservoir from the Khurais Oilfield, Saudi Arabia. Material is referred to a new species, Kamaena khumisensis. Specimens occur in the wackestones and packstones of the lower part of the reservoir, deposited in offshore shelf environments deeper than those containing most of the other described Arab Reservoir dasycladaceans.

• Read more about Palaeoberesellids (dasycladaceans) from the Upper Jurassic Arab-D Reservoir, Saudi Arabia