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Species of marine bivalves of the pectinoid genus Monotis provide useful biochronologic indices for the Late Triassic (middle Norian–earliest Rhaetian). We report the succession of Monotis at Hernstein in Lower Austria where typical late Norian Monotis salinaria (Schlotheim) are overlain by strata with apparently the youngest Monotis known of demonstrable Rhaetian age: Monotis hoernesi Kittl and Monotis rhaetica sp. nov., a species closely related to M. rudis Gemmellaro.

• Read more about Rhaetian (Late Triassic) Monotis (Bivalvia: Pectinoida) from the eastern Northern Calcareous Alps (Austria) and the end-Norian crisis in pelagic faunas

A new monotypic aphid family, Sinojuraphididae, is described from the Middle Jurassic of China. Its antennae and wing venation have very plesiomorphic structures, even more than in known Triassic taxa (e.g. 12 antennomeres, Cu with a very long stem, very narrow pterostigma), confirming the persistence of ancient, probably Triassic, lineages among Jurassic aphids.

• Read more about A new Middle Jurassic aphid family (Insecta: Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Sinojuraphididae fam. nov.) from Inner Mongolia, China

Eodysagrion mikkelseni gen. et sp. nov., type species of the new subfamily Eodysagrioninae, and the dysagrionine Primorilestes madseni sp. nov., the first thaumatoneurid damselflies from the lowermost Eocene of Denmark, are described. They confirm the presence of this American family in the Palaeogene of Western Europe.

• Read more about The first damselflies from the lowermost Eocene of Denmark, with a description of a new subfamily (Odonata, Zygoptera: Dysagrionidae)

The recently described St Bathans Fauna, from the Manuherikia Group, Early–Middle Miocene, 19–16 Ma, New Zealand, includes six anatid taxa. Here we present detailed morphological descriptions of all available skeletal elements of the three best represented anatids: Manuherikia lacustrina (551 specimens), Dunstanetta johnstoneorum (7 specimens), and Miotadorna sanctibathansi (115 specimens).

• Read more about Affinities of Miocene waterfowl (Anatidae: Manuherikia, Dunstanetta and Miotadorna) from the St Bathans Fauna, New Zealand

The tergomyan genus CarcassonnellaHorný and Peel, 1996 is common in and characteristic of the Mediterranean Province in peri-Gondwanan terranes during the late Tremadoc and Arenig. It is united with other small, slit-bearing cyrtonellids in the Carcassonnellidae Horný, 1997b, of which BaltiscanellaHorný, 1997b from the Arenig of the Oslo Region, Norway, and Sarkanella from the Caradoc of the Siljan District, Sweden has been recognized outside the Mediterranean Province.

• Read more about The tergomyan mollusc Carcassonnella from the Upper Ordovician of Girvan, Scotland

Results of a cladistic analysis of the suborder Conulariina Miller and Gurley, 1896, a major extinct (Vendian–Triassic) group of scyphozoan cnidarians, are presented. The analysis sought to test whether the three conulariid subfamilies (Conulariinae Walcott, 1886, Paraconulariinae Sinclair, 1952 and Ctenoconulariinae Sinclair, 1952) recognized in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology (TIP) are monophyletic.

• Read more about Cladistic analysis of the suborder Conulariina Miller and Gurley, 1896 (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa; Vendian–Triassic)

New specimens of Peratherium africanum from Early Oligocene deposits of the Fayum, Egypt, provide key information on the relationships of the species. These include the first maxilla to be found and two additional dentaries. The maxilla can be demonstrated to belong to the same species as the holotype dentary by study of the occlusal relationships of upper and lower molars. It can be shown by several synapomorphies that P. africanum is the sister species to European Bartonian–Rupelian Peratherium lavergnense. P.

• Read more about The origin of Afro-Arabian 'didelphimorph' marsupials

A single specimen of a new species of oribatid mite belonging to the genus Jureremus Krivolutsky, in Krivolutsky and Krassilov 1977, previously described from the Upper Jurassic of the Russian Far East, is described as J. phippsi sp. nov. The mite is preserved by iron pyrite replacement, and was recovered by sieving from the Oxford Clay Formation (Jurassic: Upper Callovian) of South Cave, Yorkshire.

• Read more about An oribatid mite (Arachnida: Acari) from the Oxford Clay (Jurassic: Upper Callovian) of South Cave Station Quarry, Yorkshire, UK

Climate warming at the Palaeocene/Eocene boundary (c. 55.8 Ma) had significant permanent affects on paratropical and warm-adapted vegetation types. Pollen and spore records which document vegetation turnover from the eastern US Gulf Coast have all been taken from sediments of marginal marine depositional environments. Pollen and spores (sporomorphs) are preserved excellently in these marginal marine depositional environments but these assemblages contain grains transported from many different vegetation types and over huge geographic distances.

• Read more about Comparisons between Palaeocene–Eocene paratropical swamp and marginal marine pollen floras from Alabama and Mississippi, USA

The ammonite genus Alocolytoceras Hyatt, 1900 is an uncommon lytoceratid with distinctive shell ornament. A set of 58 specimens, recently collected at Amellago in the central High Atlas (Morocco), has enabled us to trace a succession of three species over eight biozones from the Toarcian to the Aalenian. Two specimens from the Lusitanian Basin are added for comparison. Following a review of the genus, based on original specimens and data from the literature, seven species are considered valid.

• Read more about Early–Middle Jurassic lytoceratid ammonites with constrictions from Morocco: palaeobiogeographical and evolutionary implications