Shi and Waterhouse (1996, p. 127) proposed a new genus, Yukonella, for a distinctive licharewiinid species (Spiriferida, Brachiopoda) based on well-preserved material from the Lower Permian upper Jungle Creek Formation, northern Yukon Territory, Canada. However, the Editor of the Zoological Record, Mrs. M. Joan Thorne (personal commun., 1997), has kindly informed me that the name Yukonella is preoccupied by an Upper Triassic poriferan genus published by Senowbari-Daryan and Reid (1986, p. 900). I therefore rename the brachiopod genus Nahoniella after the Nahoni Range in the northern Ogilvie Mountains of northern Yukon Territory, Canada, where the type species of the genus, Nahoniella plana (Shi and Waterhouse), was collected.

Tolypelepis mielnikensis n. sp. from a core sample of the Late Silurian (Pridoli) succession in Mielnik, Poland shares tolypelepidid features such as a subdivision of the dorsal shield into epitega, and ornamentation of short dentine ridges grouped into scale-like units with a coarser, higher median ridge encircled by narrower and lower ridges. A constriction of the dorsal shield anterior to the orbit level with the orbital notches significantly deeper than in other tolypelepidids discriminates it from other Tolypelepis species.

Acteonellids were one of the most significant groups of marine macro-invertebrates in the Late Cretaceous biota of the Tethyan Realm. They were common faunal elements associated with Cretaceous carbonate platform communities most notable for their abundance of rudist frameworks and thrived in coeval lagoons. The Upper Cretaceous fossil-bearing Karababa Formation, cropping out in southeastern Turkey, yields a remarkable assemblage of acteonellid gastropods and rudists. Cretaceous gastropods from sedimentary successions in Turkey barely have been studied over the past 80 years. The subgenus Trochactaeon, a very successful and widespread taxon of heterobranch gastropods within the family Acteonellidae, dominated acteonellid assemblages throughout the Late Cretaceous. In the present work, we present the first record of Trochactaeon (Trochactaeon) giganteus subglobosus from Turkey. It is from a single lower Campanian bed in the upper part of the Karababa Formation of the Gölbaşı region (south of Adıyaman), corresponding to the northwestern part of the Arabian Platform. This record complements information on the temporal and spatial distribution of Trochactaeon at the southern margin of the Tethyan Ocean during the last part of the Cretaceous Period. This discovery increases the documented diversity of the paleofauna from the Upper Cretaceous succession in southeastern Turkey and provides new insights into the paleoenvironment of the carbonate ramp of the northern Arabian plate, and the paleobiogeography of Campanian gastropods in general.

Spongiostroma Gürich, 1906 from the Mississippian of Belgium was initially provisionally placed in Foraminifera and subsequently compared with hydrozoans and microbial carbonates. For nearly 100 years, the term spongiostromate has been widely applied to clotted microbial fabrics in stromatolites and oncolites. Examination of the type material shows that S. mæandrinum Gürich, 1906, the type species of Spongiostroma, consists of numerous juxtaposed millimetric pillow-like masses permeated by thin anastomose sparry microscopic fibers (vermiform fabric) in fine-grained groundmass, locally traversed by millimetric rounded to elongate partly sediment-filled openings. Here we interpret S. mæandrinum to be a lobate sponge composed of mammiform papillae formed by calcified spongin network and traversed by canals and spongocoel. These are typical features of calcified remains of keratosan demosponges. We redescribe and revise S. mæandrinum and interpret it as a keratosan demosponge with papilliform morphology. This upholds Gürich's (1906) initial opinion that Spongiostroma could be a sponge and supports suggestions that keratosan vermiform fabric has long been confused with microbial carbonate. Since S. mæandrinum is not a stromatolite, it is inappropriate to use the term spongiostromate to describe microbial carbonate microfabric.

The Early Ordovician (late Tremadocian; Stairsian) trilobite Gonioteloides Kobayashi has long been known from a small number of pygidia assigned to a single formally named species, and its affinities have not been assessed. Silicified material from western Utah and southeastern Idaho includes six distinct species assigned to the genus, one of which is the type species. Two others (G. moffitti and G. pankowskii) are new and formally named. An additional three species that are clearly new but known from sparse material are described in open nomenclature. Gonioteloides has a stratigraphic distribution through five consecutive trilobite zones in the mid-Stairsian Stage (upper Tremadocian). Although exoskeletal morphology of three species is almost completely known, the phylogenetic affinity of the taxon remains difficult to determine. It is tentatively assigned to Dimeropygidae Hupé.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/23257d6c-262b-4ef5-ae4e-cc431777e67e

Twenty-one species of echinoid are reported from Paleocene rocks of the eastern United States along the outcrop belt from Texas to New Jersey. Six of these are strictly early Paleocene age (Danian), nine strictly late Paleocene age (Thanetian), five range throughout the Paleocene, and one previously reported Paleocene species (Diplodetus moscovensis) is most likely a Cretaceous species. Two new species are described, Salenia palmyra n. sp., from the Danian Clayton Formation in Alabama and Georgia, and Ova rancoca n. sp., from the Thanetian Vincentown Formation in New Jersey. One new species from the Clayton Formation in Mississippi, Arbaciella? sp., is left in open nomenclature.

The Weng'an Biota from the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation in Guizhou Province, southwestern China, is known for its three-dimensionally phosphatized acritarchs, multicellular algae, and embryo-like animal fossils. Among these diverse microfossils, acanthomorphic acritarchs have played a significant role in the biostratigraphic subdivision and correlation of the lower-middle Ediacaran System. However, most previous studies on the biostratigraphy of the Doushantuo Formation in the Weng'an area have focused on large acanthomorphic acritarchs (LAAs, vesicle diameter >200 μm), whereas the smaller acanthomorphic acritarchs (SAAs, vesicle diameter <100 μm) from the Weng'an Biota have been largely overlooked. In this study, we examined >500 thin sections and discovered a large number of well-preserved, small (<100 μm) and medium-sized acanthomorphic acritarchs (MAAs, vesicle diameter ranging 100–200 μm). In total, we have identified SAAs in four genera and six species (Tanarium conoideum Kolosova, 1991, emend. Moczydłowska et al., 1993; Tanarium elegans Liu et al., 2014; Mengeosphaera membranifera Shang, Liu, and Moczydłowska, 2019; Mengeosphaera minima Liu et al., 2014; Estrella recta Liu and Moczydłowska, 2019; Variomargosphaeridium gracile Xiao et al., 2014), as well as two types of MAAs (Tanarium tuberosum Moczydłowska, Vidal, and Rudavskaya, 1993, emend. Moczydłowska, 2015; Weissiella cf. W. grandistella Vorob'eva, Sergeev, and Knoll, 2009, emend. Liu and Moczydłowska, 2019). This updated acritarch assemblage of the Weng'an Biota is valuable for correlating the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation between the Weng'an and Yangtze Gorges areas. It also serves as a tool to test the proposed acritarch biozones in Ediacaran formations of South China and other localities, including Australia, Siberia, and the East European Platform.

‘Captorhinikos’ chozaensis Olson, 1954 is a captorhinid eureptile with multiple tooth rows from the lower Permian (Cisuralian: Kungurian) Clear Fork Group of north-central Texas and the Hennessey Formation of Oklahoma. It has five maxillary and four dentary tooth rows. We re-examined the available specimens referred to ‘Captorhinikos’ chozaensis to elucidate aspects of its skeletal structure and assess its phylogenetic relationships. Our parsimony analysis confirmed previous suggestions that this taxon is not referable to the same taxon as Captorhinikos valensis Olson, 1954 (type species of the genus) and ‘Captorhinikos’ parvus Olson, 1970 and thus is placed in its own new genus, Sumidadectes. It also recovered Sumidadectes chozaensis n. comb. as the earliest-diverging moradisaurine captorhinid.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/0f89869a-1889-4d90-b721-a89ba5f40c4b

This work presents a detailed taxonomic study on organic-walled microfossils from the Ediacaran Sete Lagoas Formation (Bambuí Group) at the Barreiro section in the Januária area of the São Francisco basin, Brazil. Seven species are described, including Siphonophycus robustum (Schopf, 1968), Ghoshia januarensis new species, Leiosphaeridia crassa (Naumova, 1949), Leiosphaeridia jacutica (Timofeev, 1966), Leiosphaeridia minutissima (Naumova, 1949), Leiosphaeridia tenuissima Eisenack, 1958, and Germinosphaera bispinosa Mikhailova, 1986. These taxa are recovered for the first time in the Sete Lagoas Formation. They occur abundantly in the lower portion of the studied section, but only Ghoshia januarensis is present in the upper part of the studied section, probably due to environmental or taphonomic changes. Leiosphaeridia species, particularly Leiosphaeridia minutissima, dominate the organic-walled microfossil assemblage. Although most taxa described here have long stratigraphic ranges, they are consistent with a terminal Ediacaran age as inferred from detrital zircon data and tubular fossils (e.g., Cloudina and Corumbella) from the Sete Lagoas Formation.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/7f92b900-0176-4da6-93a3-fd51edb22cbf

Euthycarcinoid arthropods (Cambrian–Triassic) were likely the first animals to transition from oceanic to freshwater and emergent environments. Although their basic bauplan is well known, they have a poor fossil record because their non-sclerotized exoskeleton was rarely preserved. Euthycarcinoids’ unusual morphology (varying numbers of body segments, seemingly dichotomous possession of either mandibles or a labrum, specialized or generalized limbs, and possession by some euthycarcinoid species of sternal pores—structures possibly analogous to coxal vesicles in myriapods) contribute to uncertainty regarding their relationship to other arthropod groups; while their poor fossil record masks the evolutionary transitions within and between the separate realms they inhabited (marine, freshwater, emergent). A new euthycarcinoid from a Permian polar proglacial lake is described herein that is morphologically unlike all other euthycarcinoids, and interpreted as being well adapted for a nekton-benthic lifestyle. Antarcticarcinus pagoda n. gen. n. sp. possesses a pair of large wing-like processes that project laterally from the preabdominal dorsal exoskeleton. A trace fossil from the overlying Mackellar Formation, cf. Orbiculichnus, which was previously interpreted as having been produced by insects taking off or landing on wet sediments, is reinterpreted herein as being produced by A. pagoda n. gen. n. sp. due to the high degree of morphological similarity between traces and body fossils. This occurrence indicates that euthycarcinoids were able to adapt to life in temperate freshwater environments, while possible subaerial adaptations hint at an ability to breathe air. Indeed, if euthycarcinoids could breathe air, Cambrian terrestrial forays and rapid transition (by the Ordovician) into freshwater environments might be explained.

The genus Collarothyris was erected by Modzalevskaya in 1970 (p. 155) with Meristella canaliculata Wenjukow, 1899, as type species. Wenjukow (1899) did not designate a type; however, on p. 143 he gave the measurements of two specimens, one of which was figured on Plate VII, figure 21, and designated holotype by Modzalevskaya (1970, p. 156). Unfortunately, this specimen is lost (see also Nikiforova, Modzalevskaya, and Bassett, 1985). Further checking of the collections of the Geological Museum of the Geological Institute of Science, Kiev (Ukrania), resulted in finding, among Wenjukow's (1899) original collection, one specimen (No. 367/165) labelled as Meristella canaliculata and whose measurements coincide with one of those given by Wenjukow (1899, p. 143). This specimen is here figured (Figure 1) and selected lectotype of Collarothyris canaliculata (Wenjukow).

Propeamussium (Parvamussium) holzense n. sp. and Propeamussium (Parvamussium) robinsonense n. sp. are described from the Upper Cretaceous Holz Shale Member of the Ladd Formation, Santa Ana Mountains, southern California. These species occur with Bostrychoceras elongatum (Whiteaves), Glyptoxoceras subcompressum (Forbes), and Inoceramus orientalus (Sokolow), which are indicative of a late medial Santonian age (Bostrychoceras elongatum Biochron). Propeamussium (Parvamussium) cowperi (Waring), from the Campanian Chatsworth Formation of the Simi Hills, southern California, is also redescribed and reillustrated for comparative purposes.

This year (1989) marks the 100th anniversary of the Kansas Geological Survey's location at the University of Kansas. Perhaps no single name is as closely associated with the Survey as Raymond Cecil Moore, director of the Survey and state geologist of Kansas from 1916 to 1954 (Figure 1). Moore was, without doubt, the principal influence on the Survey's character and direction in the first half of the twentieth century, and he continued to be involved in the Survey and its research until his death in 1974. In spite of Moore's seminal influence at the Kansas Geological Survey and the University of Kansas, a formal memorial for Moore was never published and a bibliography of Moore's written works never compiled. Thus, the following memorial and bibliography are published to commemorate Moore, 100 years after the founding of the organization that he affected most significantly and to which he devoted so much of his time and talent, the Kansas Geological Survey.

The first major international trilobite conference (which also dealt with related arthropod groups) was convened by David Bruton in Oslo in 1973. That meeting resulted in a 467 page proceedings volume (Martinsson, 1975) that has become an indispensible reference on arthropod paleobiology. With its abundance of high-quality empirical work and influential ideas, the ongoing utility of “Fossils and Strata 4” is assured, yet it is also a fascinating microcosm of the themes and concerns of paleontology as a whole a quarter of a century ago. Paleoecology blossomed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Autecology, and particularly functional morphology, dominates the volume, accounting for about one-third of the contributions. Plate tectonics was a relatively recent development in 1973 and, following the lead of Whittington and Hughes (1972), several papers tackled trilobite paleobiogeography. They vary from a bold attempt to determine oceanic circulation through the Ordovician by Ross to more conventional studies of biogeographic distribution that were aimed at providing further support for concepts of continental drift. There was a burgeoning interest in community paleoecology, and Richard Fortey's (1975) now-classic paper on the Early Ordovician faunas of Spitsbergen was the first to define trilobite “communities.” The volume was rounded out by diverse papers on trilobite anatomy based on material from the Burgess Shale and Beecher's Trilobite Bed, the microstructure of the trilobite cuticle, trilobites eyes, high level classification of trilobites, and various evolutionary themes (character displacement in agnostoids; adaptive radiation in Cambrian trilobites).

In 1968, R. H. Kilpatrick of Milton, Florida, discovered three large entelodont teeth in the bed of the Conecuh River in Alabama. Frank C. Whitmore, Jr. of the U.S. Geological Survey identified the specimens, visited the fossil locality, and began a study of this unique find. Two decades later, Whitmore realized that devotion to his true research interest, the study of fossil cetaceans, would not allow him time to complete the study of the entelodont remains. He generously passed the specimens on to the writer to finish the project for which he had laid the groundwork.

During preparation of a manuscript on new collections of Upper Cambrian trilobites from the Threadgill Creek section in central Texas (Longacre, 1970, text-fig. 6), a new trilobite species Ptychopleurites spinosa was discovered that can be used to recognize a revised base to the Saukia Zone (Trempealeauan Stage) in central Texas. This species is represented in central Texas by numerous, well-preserved cranidia and librigenae, but no pygidia have been recovered. Recently Ptychopleurites spinosa was also identified in a collection of trilobites of the partly correlative Illaenurus Zone (= lower part of Saukia Zone) from the type section of the Deadwood Formation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This work is part of a paper that will describe the latest Franconian and Trempealeauan trilobites from the Deadwood Formation, using collections made by Dr. Christina Lochman-Balk. Ptychopleurites spinosa is represented in the Black Hills by incompletely preserved cranidia and well-preserved librigenae. Because it is not known which of these two papers will be published first, it was decided to establish Ptychopleurites spinosa as a new species with one of the better Texas cranidia as the holotype and the Black Hills material as part of the suite of paratypes.