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Agua del Choique is a new Late Cretaceous sauropod track site from Mendoza Province, Neuquén Basin, Argentina. It is situated in the Loncoche Formation, late Campanian – early Maastrichthian in age, and is one of the youngest sauropod tracks site recorded in the world. Agua del Choique represents a lake setting and river-dominated delta deposits, and comprises at least 160 well-preserved tracks, located on a calcareous sandstone bed. A new ichnotaxon, Titanopodus mendozensis ichnogen. et ichnosp. nov., is erected for the footprints of this track site.

• Read more about A new wide-gauge sauropod track site from the Late Cretaceous of Mendoza, Neuquén Basin, Argentina

Chitinozoans recovered from cores BG-14 and WS-6 in southern and eastern Jordan are described. Sample ages are well-constrained by graptolite data to the ascensus-acuminatus and vesiculosus graptolite biozones. Eighteen chitinozoan taxa are recognized, with Spinachitina fragilis, Plectochitina nodifera, Ancyrochitina laevaensis and Belonechitina postrobusta allowing correlation with both local and global chitinozoan and graptolite biozonations for the Rhuddanian. One new species of chitinozoan is erected, Belonechitina pseudarabiensis sp. nov.

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Lectotypes of Pentaphyllum armatum and P. caryophyllatum, both of De Koninck (1872) have been sectioned for the first time and are completely illustrated; both are preserved as silicified outer shells with inner structures dissolved. The morphology of the calices strongly suggests that they have different taxonomic positions. Thus, their synonymy, suggested by Schindewolf (1942), is rejected. P. armatum, selected as type species for the genus by Hinde (1890) possesses six, not five leading major septa.

• Read more about Revision of Pentaphyllum De Koninck, 1872 (Anthozoa, Rugosa)

The first lobopodian known from the Ordovician is described from the Soom Shale Lagerstätte, South Africa. The organism shows features homologous to Palaeozoic marine lobopodians described from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang biota, the Lower Cambrian Sirius Passet Lagerstätte and the Lower Cambrian of the Baltic. The discovery provides a link between marine Cambrian lobopodians and younger forms from the Silurian and Carboniferous. The new fossil preserves an annulated trunk, lobopods with clear annulations, and curved claws.

• Read more about An Ordovician lobopodian from the Soom Shale Lagerstätte, South Africa

Desmograptus micronematodes from Thornton quarry, Cook County, Illinois, USA, remarkably preserved in relief and encased in pyrite, is described. The internal details of the thecae, and of the stolon system, examined using the SEM, allow the reconstruction of the growth of a stipe. The stolons and stolonal nodes are formed of a dense crassal fabric, and are surrounded by a loose fabric of three-dimensional fibrils. The nodes have a complex structure of three boxes with proximal and distal nozzles.

• Read more about Desmograptus micronematodes, a Silurian dendroid graptolite, and its ultrastructure

Several thousand disarticulated remains together with a few complete enrolled specimens of the lower Cambrian eodiscoid trilobite Calodiscus lobatus (Hall, 1847) have been collected at two outcrop areas in Sweden. The material reveals new details of morphology and morphogenesis during ontogenetic development. Size-frequency analyses show that the material from the Fånån rivulet in Jämtland, central Sweden, represents a natural population dominated by juveniles, whereas the material from Gislövshammar in Scania, southern Sweden, has been sorted during postmortem transport.

• Read more about The Lower Cambrian eodiscoid trilobite Calodiscus lobatus from Sweden: morphology, ontogeny and distribution

The fidelity of the fossil record reflects how accurately it preserves the history of life. Since Darwin's time any mismatch between our theories and the fossil record has been attributed to the imperfections of the record. For over a century scarcity of gradual evolutionary trends was explained in this way until the punctuated equilibrium model was proposed. A null hypothesis that all morphological patterns in the fossil record are unbiased random walks can be rejected because it predicts far more apparent trends than exist.

• Read more about The fidelity of the fossil record: the improbability of preservation

• Read more about Melittosphex (Hymenoptera: Melittosphecidae), a primitive bee and not a wasp [discussion]

Based on new, bed-rock controlled material from Oman and Utah, USA, the Early Triassic genus Guodunites, which was recently erected on the basis of scarce specimens from northwestern Guangxi, South China, is now shown to be a representative of Proptychitidae. This solves the question of the previously unknown phylogenetic affinity of this genus. The genus is restricted to the late middle Smithian, and to date, its biogeographical distribution comprises Oman, South China and Utah, thus indicating an essentially low palaeolatitudinal distribution during the Early Triassic.

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In this paper, we document Palaeogene occurrences of the extant nannoplankton genera Gladiolithus, Algirosphaera and Solisphaera from claystones of the Kilwa Group microfossil lagerstätte, coastal Tanzania. In the modern ocean, these taxa are restricted to tropical and subtropical lower photic zone habitats (100–200 m). All three genera produce small and/or fragile coccoliths, which have not previously been found as fossils or are only found in late Quaternary sediments.

• Read more about A Palaeogene record of extant lower photic zone calcareous nannoplankton