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Three plants based on megafossils are described from the Late Triassic Chinle Formation at a new locality in north-eastern Arizona. They are the leafy shoot and cone of Selaginella anasazia sp. nov., the leafy and fertile branches of Dechellyia gormani gen. et sp. nov., a conifer of uncertain affinities, and Masculostrobus clathratus sp. nov., a male coniferous cone. The cone is noteworthy because it contains pollen closely resembling the Late Triassic grains called Equisetosporites chinleana by Daugherty (1941) and later referred to the genus Ephedra by Scott (1960).

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Siliceous shale in the Lower Carboniferous at Chillaton, Devonshire, has abundant moulds of conodonts. The relatively rare genus Dollymae is represented by the species D. hassi, which has previously been found only in the upper part of the German anehoralis-Zone. The presence of this form might seem to give a precise indication of the age of the Chillaton fauna. However, the three primary indices recommended for the anchoralis-Zoae by Voges are missing. It is therefore necessary to take account of information from Texas and Belgium, where Dollymae species (although, so far, not D.

• Read more about A Lower Carboniferous conodont fauna from Chillaton, southwest Devonshire

Well preserved arthropods from the Farrington Group (Westphalian D) of the Somerset coalfield are described. Ten specimens of Euproops kilmersdonensis sp. nov., of which seven occur in a single bedding plane, permit a range of intraspecific variation and effects of deformation to be taken into account in erecting a new species. A reconstruction of E. kilmersdonensis does not show the presence of long ophthalmic spines. It resembles the type species, E, danae (Meek and Worthen 1865), differing in the shape of the cardiac lobe and ornament of the opisthosoma. Eophrynus jugatus sp. nov.

• Read more about New Upper Carboniferous Chelicerata (Arthropoda) from Somerset, England

Horizons of bored concretions, 'hardgrounds' or 'hiatus concretions' of European authors, occur at several levels in the Aptian to Coniacian marine sediments of Zululand (South Africa). They show signs of a complex burial and excavation history, are bored by lithophagous bivalves and encrusted by a variety of epizoans, while vacated borings have been secondarily occupied by nestling bivalves and other organisms.

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The genus Dorsetensia is revised to include Ammonitespinguis Roemer and related species. Dimorphism is possible but separate specific names for macroconchs and microconchs are retained for the present. In the basal part of the Humphriesianum Zone and Subzone D. hannoverana (Hiltermann) (? M), D. hebridica sp. nov. (? M), and D. pinguis (Roemer) (?m) occur, while stratigraphically higher in the Humphriesianum Subzone are D. liostraca Buckman (? M) and D. romani (Oppel) (? m).

• Read more about The Bajocian ammonite Dorsetensia in Skye, Scotland

All Recent echinoderms possess extensile tube-feet, and probably all extinct groups had them too. In the most primitive of the living groups, the Crinozoa, the tube-feet are extended by muscular contractions of the water-vascular canals that link together all tube-feet in the animal; most probably, all fossil crinozoans share this method. In the Asterozoa, as well as the agency of the canals, various accessory structures, such as bulbs and ampullae, also become involved. The Homalozoa appear to have most resembled the asterozoans in the operation of their tube-feet.

• Read more about The water-vascular system in living and fossil echinoderms [The Fourteenth Annual Address, delivered 3 March 1971]

An encrusting organism which shows zonal cell-differentiation and patterns of cells reminiscent of both Melobesieae and Solenoporaceae (Algae), and cell-sizes more in keeping with certain invertebrate organisms, is described as Cretacicrusta dubiosa gen. et sp. nov., and its nature discussed.

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The recent discovery of a cetacean from the Middle Eocene (Lutetian) beds of south-western Kutch is the earliest record of mammals from India. The Archaeoceti are represented in India by a new species o Protocetus, Protocetus sloani sp. nov., based on a partial skull and two mandibular fragments. The age of the bone-bearing horizon is Lutetian on the basis of an associated foraminiferal assemblage.

• Read more about A new species of Protocetus (Cetacea) from the Middle Eocene of Kutch, western India

The fossil wood studied comes from the Landenian, Ypresian, and Pleistocene (Red Crag, presumed derived from Ypresian) of south-east England. Two specimens anatomically indistinguishable from the trunk wood of living species of Platanus are described as Platanus sp.: other specimens are described as Plataninium decipiens sp. nov.; these have certain features seen in wood of branch bases and roots of Platanus, but differ slightly from ordinary trunk wood of the living genus. Twelve additional specimens are assigned to the new species.

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Acanthocrania, a rare craniacean brachiopod in the Ordovician of Europe, is 4escribed for the first time from Wales, where it occurs in the form of A. papillifera (Roemer).

• Read more about The brachiopod Acanthocrania in the Ordovician of Wales