Life-history traits such as dispersal affect population attributes like gene flow, which can have consequences for speciation and extinction rates over macroevolutionary timescales. Here we use the Cheilostomatida, a monophyletic order of marine bryozoans, to test whether a life-history trait, larval brooding, affected the origination and extinction rates of genera throughout their fossil record. Cheilostome lineages that brood their larvae have shorter larval dispersal distances than non-brooding lineages, which has led to the hypothesis that the evolution of larval brooding decreased gene flow, increased origination, and drove their Cretaceous diversification. Brooding cheilostomes are far more diverse than non-brooding cheilostomes today, but it remains to be shown that brooding lineages have a higher origination rate than non-brooders. We fit time-varying Pradel seniority capture–mark–recapture models to look at the effect of brooding on origination and extinction rates during the Cretaceous cheilostome diversification, the Cretaceous/Paleogene mass extinction and recovery, and through the Cenozoic. Our results support the hypothesis that brooding affects origination rate, but only in the Cenomanian to Campanian. Extinction rates do not differ between brooding and non-brooding genera, and there is no regime shift specific to the Cretaceous/Paleogene mass extinction. Our work illustrates the importance of using fossil occurrences and time-varying models, which can detect interval-specific diversification differentials.

Studying deep-water shark species presents inherent challenges stemming from the difficulty in accessing their habitats, coupled with factors such as low population densities, intricate behaviours, and complex biological attributes. The integration of citizen scientists, particularly fishers, offers a valuable avenue to make use of their life-long insights and expertise, thus facilitating the acquisition of crucial data that can effectively enhance the realm of shark research. Our collaborative engagement with fishers since 2017 has yielded an extensive documentation concerning elasmobranchs in the Caribbean region of Puerto Rico providing a unique opportunity to formally record species hitherto unreported. This is exemplified by the first documentation of the smalltooth sandtiger shark (Odontaspis ferox (Risso, 1810)). Despite its broad geographic range and widespread distribution in temperate and tropical marine environments, there is a lack of comprehensive scientific understanding and limited available knowledge regarding this species. A noteworthy finding on December 30, 2020, near Rincón (northwest coast) in Puerto Rico, disclosed a large shark that an experienced fisher had captured as an unidentified by-catch at a depth of 325 m. Through an interdisciplinary approach using molecular (355 bp, Cytochrome Oxidase Subunit 1) and morphological techniques, we successfully confirmed the identity of the specimen as a female smalltooth sandtiger shark. Given the limited information available (e.g., diversity, abundance, behaviour, reproduction, distribution) on shark species in the coastal and deep waters of Puerto Rico, this report provides valuable new data that can significantly contribute to the conservation efforts to protect these enigmatic yet ecologically vital predators.

Early Miocene land mammals from eastern North America are exceedingly rare. Over the past several decades a small, but significant, vertebrate fauna has been recovered by paleontologists and citizen scientists from the Belgrade Formation at the Martin Marietta Belgrade Quarry in eastern North Carolina. This assemblage has 12 land mammal taxa, including beaver (Castoridae), stem lagomorph, carnivorans (Mustelidae, Ailuridae), horses (Equidae), rhinoceros (Rhinocerotidae), tapir (Tapiridae), peccary (Tayassuidae), anthracothere (Anthracotheriidae), entelodont (Entelodontidae), and protoceratid (Protoceratidae). Taken together, the biochronology of this Maysville Local Fauna indicates a late Arikareean (Ar3/Ar4) to early Hemingfordian (He1) North American Land Mammal Age (NALMA). This interval, which includes the Runningwater Chronofauna, documents numerous important Holarctic immigrants, including Amphictis, Craterogale, and cf. Menoceras found at this locality. Strontium isotope stratigraphy (SIS) of shark teeth collected in situ from the Belgrade Formation yield an age of 21.4 ± 0.13 Ma, which validates the age of interbedded land mammals within this unit. It also is consistent with the late Arikareean (Ar3/Ar4) biochronology and Aquitanian Neogene marine stage. New SIS analyses of oysters (Striostrea gigantissima) and clams (Chione) from this mine, previously assigned to late Oligocene or Late Miocene, are significantly older (28.0 ± 0.22 Ma and 27.6 ± 0.26 Ma, respectively) than the land mammals. Depending upon stratigraphic interpretations, these may confirm an older marine facies within the Belgrade Formation. This locality is important because of its marine and terrestrial tie-ins that facilitate intercalibration of both NALMAs and Cenozoic marine stages.

Over the interval 2008–2023 a large number of studies have been published testing various aspects of punctuated equilibria, including the prevalence of stasis, and also the extent to which most evolutionary change is concentrated at cladogenesis. In the vast majority of studies, punctuated equilibria continued to be strongly validated, as widespread evidence for stasis accumulated, with only some rare incidences of gradual change found. Support for the importance of cladogenetic change has increased, and new analytical approaches to study punctuated equilibria have been developed. Over this time period, there has also been an increase in the number of studies that have concentrated on extant taxa to test for punctuated equilibria, and these have also corroborated its widespread presence. In this respect, punctuated equilibria has served as an important bridge between neontological and paleontological approaches to evolutionary biology. From 2008 to 2023, there has also been some drift in how stasis is defined, such that, in certain studies, the definition diverged from the original 1972 definition in important respects. Notably, it is the few studies that have most changed the definition of what stasis constitutes that have most challenged the validity of punctuated equilibria, indicating it is morphing interpretations and definitions rather than the discovery of data compatible with phyletic gradualism that are most responsible for divergent results.

We describe the findings of cyclidans from the unpublished collection of the famous paleontologist B.I. Chernyshev (1888–1950) in the storage of the Academician F.N. Chernyshev Central Scientific Research Geological Survey Museum (CNIGR museum, St. Petersburg, Russia). These cyclidans were discovered by various researchers in the Carboniferous and Permian of the Urals. They are represented by the following taxa: Oonocarcinus uralicus new species, Uralocyclus feldmanni new species, Ambocyclus capidulum (Chernyshev, 1933), and Magnitocyclus (?) sp. indet. The discovery of the new species Oonocarcinus uralicus n. sp. greatly expands the geographic and stratigraphic interval of the genus Oonocarcinus Gemmellaro, 1890, previously known from the Middle Permian and Triassic. The discovery of Uralocyclus feldmanni n. sp. in the Mississippian deposits of the Chelyabinsk Oblast indicates a wide distribution of the genus Uralocyclus Mychko and Alekseev, 2018 in the Early Carboniferous, because Carboniferous representatives of this genus were previously known only from Ireland and England. The paper provides an up-to-date list of all known cyclidan occurrences and taxa in Russia.

http://zoobank.org/6d69be36-74ca-4205-8eb8-89d1f28458c7

The Paragaricocrinidae is an enigmatic late Paleozoic family of camerate crinoids that retained a robustly constructed calyx more typical of Devonian to Early Mississippian crinoids. The discovery of the oldest member of this family, Tuscumbiacrinus madisonensis n. gen. n. sp., initiated a phylogenetic investigation of the Paragaricocrinidae and consideration of its diversification and paleobiogeographic distribution. Phylogenetic analyses demonstrate the need to describe Tuscumbiacrinus n. gen and conduct revisions to preexisting taxa, resulting in the description of Palenciacrinus mudaensis n. gen. n. sp.; Pulcheracrinus n. gen.; Nipponicrinus hashimotoi n. gen. n. sp.; and Nipponicrinus akiyoshiensis n. gen. n. sp. Megaliocrinus exotericus Strimple is reassigned to Pulcheracrinus n. gen. In addition to having an anachronistic morphology, relatively few specimens are known through the ca. 76-million-year duration of this family. This pattern is unlikely to have resulted from low fossil sampling alone, and instead likely reflects low abundance and/or taxonomic richness of a long-lived waning clade. From its apparent origination in Laurussia during the Mississippian, the Paragaricocrinidae diversified into a cosmopolitan clade. Following a diversity drop during the Pennsylvanian, the Paragaricocrinidae persisted but exemplified characteristics of a dead clade walking until its eventual extinction during the middle Permian (Wordian).

http://zoobank.org/3e5df71c-112f-4556-96c5-a5a62d4a4da9