Over the course of the last two decades, the baenid taxon Plesiobaena has typically been thought to consist of two named species, Plesiobaena antiqua (Campanian) and Plesiobaena putorius (Paleocene), along with an unnamed species from the Maastrichtian, but the interrelationship of these three taxa was never explored in an explicit phylogenetic context. Herein we present or re-describe a number of relevant specimens and provide a cladistic analysis of Baenidae using species only as terminal taxa. The phylogenetic analysis clearly reveals that Plesiobaena in the traditional sense is a paraphyletic assemblage relative to the clade formed by Gamerabaena sonsalla and Palatobaena spp., thus demanding some nomenclatural adjustments. In particular, Plesiobaena putorius is moved to a new genus, Cedrobaena, and the unnamed taxon from the Maastrichtian is formally named Peckemys brinkman. Many of the new Cedrobaena putorius and Peckemys brinkman specimens described herein were found at the Turtle Graveyard locality in Slope County, North Dakota, along with four other turtle taxa, increasing the turtle diversity of this locality to at least six taxa. Although this indicates that Turtle Graveyard is the world's most diverse fossil turtle thanatocoenosis, a comparable diversity is found in modern river systems in the southeastern United States today. Our phylogenetic analysis indicates that seven out of nine latest Cretaceous baenid turtle lineages survived into the Paleocene, four of which are interpreted as being durophagous.

A rich and diverse micromammal fauna from the late Turolian (MN13) locality of Negratín-1 (Guadix Basin, southern Spain) is described. The faunal list of this site includes Apodemus gudrunae, Occitanomys alcalai, Stephanomys dubari, Paraethomys meini, Myocricetodon jaegeri, Debruijnimys almenarensis, Apocricetus alberti, Ruscinomys sp., Eliomys sp., Atlantoxerus sp., Parasorex ibericus, and Soricidae indet. This is the most nearly complete mammal fauna from the Miocene of the Guadix Basin and allows precise correlations with localities from other Iberian areas. In addition, some of the taxa identified in Negratín-1 are useful as palaeoecological indicators (Myocricetodon, Debruijnimys, Atlantoxerus), evidencing warm and dry climatic conditions. But the principal interest of the fauna from Negratín-1 is the presence of several species of African origin, the gerbillids Debruijnimys almenarensis and Myocricetodon jaegeri, which are recognized for the first time in Europe. We also ascribe to M. jaegeri the population from the upper Turolian karst infilling of Almenara-M. This finding constitutes new evidence for faunal exchanges between North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula during the Messinian Salinity Crisis.

New fusulinid collections from the Baoshan Block in southwest China necessitate paleobiogeographic reevaluation of the Mid-Permian fusulinids in this region. From Xiaoxinzhai Section in the southern Baoshan Block, 32 fusulinid species of nine genera are described and illustrated. Among them, Eopolydiexodina parva is a new species, and elements of Neoschwagerinidae and Verbeekinidae are confirmed. The studied fusulinids are ascendingly grouped into three biozones: the Schwagerina yunnanensis Range Zone, Eopolydiexodina Abundance Zone, and Sumatrina annae Range Zone. The lower two could be assigned in age to the Murgabian and the uppermost one to the Midian. Midian fusulinids are for the first time reported from the Baoshan Block. In terms of fusulinid paleobiogeography, these three assemblages should belong to the western Tethyan Province A because of the presence of Eopolydiexodina and characteristic Tethyan genera, e.g., Verbeekina, Sumatrina, and Pseudodoliolina. Moreover, these assemblages may occupy a comparatively high latitudinal region within Tethyan Realm, judging from the overall low diversity.

Hapsidophyllas flexibilis new genus and species and Frondophyllas grandis new genus and species are rare Ediacaran (ca. 565 Ma) rangeomorph forms, herein termed “hapsidophyllids,” which are endemic to Mistaken Point, Newfoundland, Canada. These two taxa are highly disparate in overall morphology, the former being a low-level, multibranched “network of leaves” and the latter a meter-long frond. Despite their dissimilarity in gross morphology, the two genera share a unique flexible, leaflet-type structure with a fine-scale branching structure that resembles that of charnid rangeomorphs. These leaflet structures are unknown from any other rangeomorph or Ediacaran group, and are herein termed “hapsidophyllid leaflets.” Hapsidophyllids grew by an iteration of structural units, with small rangeomorph modules making up the larger hapsidophyllid leaflets, which in turn composed the larger hapsidophyllid organism. The presence of hapsidophyllid leaflets in both Hapsidophyllas and Frondophyllas suggest the two genera were related taxonomically, with their very different gross morphologies reflecting ecological adaptations to exploit different suspension-feeding tiers.

We report changes of deep-sea ostracod fauna during the last 370,000 yr from the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Hole 704A in the South Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. The results show that faunal changes are coincident with glacial/interglacial-scale deep-water circulation changes, even though our dataset is relatively small and the waters are barren of ostracods until mid-MIS (Marine Isotope Stage) 5. Krithe and Poseidonamicus were dominant during the Holocene interglacial period and the latter part of MIS 5, when this site was under the influence of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). Conversely, Henryhowella and Legitimocythere were dominant during glacial periods, when this site was in the path of Circumpolar Deep Water (CPDW). Three new species (Aversovalva brandaoae, Poseidonamicus hisayoae, and Krithe mazziniae) are described herein. This is the first report of Quaternary glacial/interglacial scale deep-sea ostracod faunal changes in the Southern and South Atlantic Oceans, a key region for understanding Quaternary climate and deep-water circulation, although the paucity of Quaternary ostracods in this region necessitates further research.

Holometabolan insects, including beetles (Coleoptera), represent about half of all living organisms. Their development cycle, allowing larvae and adults to exploit distinct ecological niches, is traditionally advocated as a critical adaptation resulting in this extraordinary diversity. Herein I report the occurrence of a beetle from the Pennsylvanian deposit of Mazon Creek (IL, USA). It predates the diversification of Coleoptera by at least 65 million years. This identification supports the view that, early in their history, hyper-diverse extant holometabolan lineages were dominated by Palaeozoic lineages, mostly extinct. End-Permian environmental perturbations might have played an important role in the Triassic radiation of holometabolans. However, it is hypothesized that ecological preferences of holometabolans might have resulted in an earlier diversification of moderate importance, correlating to that of seed plants, their putative host plants. The evolutionary success of ‘holometaboly’ might be the result of a sequence of favorable events.

Two taxa of the Late Carboniferous and four species of the Early Permian terrestrial snails have been found in the Late Paleozoic continental molasse sediments of the Upper Silesian-Cracow Upland (Southern Poland). Discovery of Anthracopupa ohioensis and Protodiscus priscus indicates that, besides in North America, they occurred also in the European part of the Pangea supercontinent. According to the general sedimentary facies context and the accompanying floral and faunal assemblages, the gastropods lived in swamp environments, including a topogenous fen.

Permian colonial corals from Artinskian to Kungurian strata in the Conglomerate Mesa area, Inyo Mountains, east-central California, include five new species, one of which is assigned to a new genus. The new taxa are: Malpaisia maceyi n. gen. and n. sp., Pararachnastraea bellula n. sp., P. delicata n. sp., P. owensensis n. sp., and Cordillerastraea inyoensis n. sp. These species, several of which compare most closely with other Artinskian and Kungurian species from eastern Nevada and northern Mexico, represent three distinct stocks that differentiated on an isolated submarine uplift offshore from the main part of the Cordilleran carbonate shelf.

X-ray CT scans at two different energies of three articulated specimens of Spathelopsis oakvalensis n. sp., a bivalve from the Bluefield Formation of the Mauch Chunk Group (Mississippian, Chesterian) from southeastern West Virginia, permitted observation and description of poorly known internal features of the shell, resulting in a reversal of the shell orientation alleged by past authors and concomitant reassignment of this problematic genus to the palaeotaxodont family Nuculanidae Adams and Adams. Distinctive posterior and anterior gapes in Spathelopsis suggest separation of inhalant and exhalant water streams, a characteristic associated with derived but not primitive palaeotaxodonts.

Archamphiroa jurassica was described by Steinmann (1930) from carbonate deposits of the Cordillera de los Andes in Mendoza, central Argentina (Arroyo Negro, confluent of Malargüe River), assigned to the Callovian stage. Based on the general morphology and the internal structure of the identified fragments, Steinmann considered them to belong to the coralline algae. Comparisons made with some fossil and extant corallines species led him to the conclusion that Archamphiroa jurassica closely resembles some species of the extant genus Amphiroa.

The paleontological site of Cal Guardiola (UTM 31T DG1702), on the western bank of the Torrent de Vallparadís (Terrassa, Catalonia, Spain), was discovered in early 1997 during the construction of a socio-sanitary building next to the Mútua de Terrassa. A report on the geology and stratigraphy of Cal Guardiola was published by Berástegui et al. (2000), including a preliminary report on the fauna. This preliminary study suggested an estimated age for Cal Guardiola of ca. 1.0 Ma (Berástegui et al., 2000). Unpublished paleomagnetic analyses, carried out by Miguel Garcés, indicate a reverse magnetization for the sampled sediments, which can be correlated to below the Brunhes-Matuyama geomagnetic boundary (pers. com. of M. Garcés in Postigo Mijarra et al., 2007), thus being older than 0.8 Ma. This dating roughly corresponds to the later part of the Epivillafranchian biochron (1.2 to 0.9 Ma), which in Europe is best represented by the faunal assemblages from Untermassfeld in Germany, Le Vallonnet in France, and Colle Curti and Slivia in Italy (Palombo et al., 2008 and references therein). The faunal assemblage from Cal Guardiola represents one of the latest Epivillafranchian faunas from Europe and thus deserves particular attention for unraveling the chronology of the dispersal events that took place during the Epivillafranchian-Galerian turnover. However, thus far only the primate remains from Cal Guardiola have been published (Alba et al., 2008), while the rest of the fauna remains unpublished. Here we describe the carnivore remains from Cal Guardiola, which record one of the latest occurrences of the hyenid Pachycrocuta in Europe and further attests the coexistence of two distinct ursid lineages by the latest Early Pleistocene in Europe.

The terrestrial tortoise clade Chelonoidis is endemic to the South American continent and nearby islands. Three continental species are currently recognized that inhabit three distinct habitats. The red-footed tortoise (C. carbonaria) and yellow-footed tortoise (C. denticulata) are often sympatric tropical to semi-tropical taxa, but the former taxon generally prefers open and wet savannahs, whereas the latter distinctly prefers permanent and wet forest cover. In contrast, the Chaco Tortoise, C. chilensis, is arid-adapted and lives along the eastern dry slopes of the southern Andes (Ernst and Barbour, 1989). The diverse group of generally dry-adapted tortoises from the Galapagos Islands is currently thought to be the gigantic sisters of C. chilensis (Caccone et al., 1999).

The polycotylidae is a family of short-necked (pliosauromorph) plesiosaurs, with examples known from epicontinental marine deposits of every major landmass except Antarctica. Our knowledge of its diversity and distribution has increased tremendously in the last decade, with new material described from North America (Sato, 2005; Albright et al., 2007; Schumacher, 2007; Schmeisser, 2008), South America (Gasparini and de la Fuente, 2000; Salgado et al., 2007), Africa (Bardet et al., 2003; Buchy et al., 2005), and Asia (Sato and Storrs, 2000; Arkhangel'skii et al., 2007). Polycotylid diversity is greatest in the Late Cretaceous, and particularly so in the Turonian; however, knowledge of the group's initial history in the Early Cretaceous is limited to a handful of specimens from North America (Storrs, 1981; Druckenmiller, 2002) and Australia (Kear 2003, 2005).

The late history of edrioasteroids has come to light only in the last 40 yr. When the edrioasteroid chapter of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology was published (Regnéll, 1966) the youngest known edrioasteroids were upper Mississippian (Chesterian). Since that time, a series of papers have described edrioasteroids in the Pennsylvanian (Fraunfelter and Utgaard, 1970; Bell, 1976; Sumrall, 1992; Sumrall and Bowsher, 1996; Sumrall et al, 2000, 2006). Pennsylvanian edrioasteroids now include nine species distributed among six genera, including one fauna bearing four genera (Sumrall et al., 2006). These edrioasteroids are not limited to a single clade but include postibullinids, plesiomorphic agelacrinitids, and derived clavate discocystinids.

The order Mecoptera is represented on all continents, albeit with an uneven distribution. Mecoptera includes about 34 families (Labandeira, 1994, p. 34), only four of them, until now, represented in South America: Permochoristidae Tillyard, 1917 (†) (Pinto, 1972); Bittacidae Handlirsch, 1906 [and stem-group “Neorthophlebinae” (†)] (Petrulevičius, 2001a, 2003, 2007); Nannochoristidae Tillyard, 1917; and Eomeropidae Cockerell, 1909. The two latter families have a present relict distribution in southern South America but without fossil record, obviously an artifact due to few studies of fossil insects in the subcontinent. The diversity of recent Bittacidae is high in South America with respect to other continents. Thirty-five percent of recent genera of Bittacidae come from South America, and 80% of these genera are endemic (extracted from Penny, 1997). Bittacidae is well represented in the fossil record, with species from the Jurassic of Patagonia (Petrulevičius, 2007), Lower Cretaceous of Brazil (Petrulevičius and Martins-Neto, 2001), to the late Paleocene of Argentina (Petrulevičius, 1998, 1999, 2001b, 2003). This contribution reports a specimen belonging to the Panorpoidea, a group with no recent species in South America and very few species in the entire Southern Hemisphere.

Yin (1974, p. 25) introduced a new genus, Quadratia for a group of Middle Triassic bivalves in the family Myophoriidae. The type species designated by him is Quadratia quadrata Yin, 1974 [p. 25, pl. 1, figs. 3 (syntype, holotype in original text, right valve), 4a–c (syntype, holotype in original text, left valve), 5 (syntype, paratype in original text); text-fig. 3], the type stratum and locality of which are the Qingyan Formation at Qingyan of Guiyang, Guizhou Province, Southwest China (see also Fang et al., 2009, p. 56, Figs. 16.18–16.21). But this genus name has been preoccupied by Quadratia Muir-Wood and Cooper, 1960 (p. 161, pl. 39, figs. 1–13), which is a member of the Productellidae in the Brachiopoda, with Quadratia hirsutiformis (Walcott, 1884, p. 133, pl. 2, figs. 10, 10a) as the type species, which comes from the White Pine shale of Mississippian age at Applegate Canyon of White Pine County, Nevada, USA. As required by ICZN (International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, Fourth edition; Ride et al., 1999) Article 60.3, I replace Quadratia Yin, 1974, with Guizhoumyophoria, new name, based on the same type species, Quadratia quadrata Yin. The new name is derived from Guizhou Province where the genus occurred.