Palynostratigraphic study of the Bear Gulch Member of the Heath Formation, central Montana, indicates an Upper Mississippian age for the deposit corresponding to Carboniferous palynofloral zone TK (ammonoid zone E2b, Namurian A). The palynoflora contains a diverse spore assemblage, including the Mississippian index Tripartites vetustus. In addition, the Bear Gulch Member contains an abundant and diverse acritarch assemblage. The age assignment is consistent with age determinations from studies of the ammonoid, conodont, and bryozoan faunas.

Diameter, dip and orientation of burrows of the ghost crab Ocypode quadrata (Fabricius) were measured in back-beach areas: dune faces, dune crests, swales, blowouts and washover fans. Slope direction of the substrate at each burrow site was also measured. Results support three conclusions. First, burrow diameter increases landward. Second, burrow dip is related more to topography than to distance from shoreline; burrows dip more steeply in flatter areas (swales, blowouts, washovers). Third, a causal relationship exists between burrow orientation (as measured by the direction in which apertures point) and substrate slope; contrary to previous conclusions, burrow orientation is unrelated to shoreline direction. Burrow apertures simply point in the same direction as substrate slopes. In fact, on landward faces of dunes, burrow apertures point away from shoreline.

During investigations in the Rhenish Schiefergebirge, West Germany, concerning the Devonian biostratigraphy of forereef limestones in the Brilon area (Figure 1) several diplodont teeth of fossil sharks were discovered by chance. Remains of xenacanthid teeth from marine Givetian beds are rare. They have been described by Hotton (1952) of probable Givetian/Frasnian age from North America, by Gross (1973) from Middle Devonian Hunsrück Shales, and by Young (1982) from Middle/Upper Devonian strata of Australia and Antarctica.

Late Ordovician radiolarians are described from allochthonous limestone breccia deposits of the graptolitic Malongulli Formation of central New South Wales. Included among the forms are the new ‘palaeoactinommid’ genus Kalimnasphaera with new species K. maculosa, the new entactiniid species, Entactinia subulata, and the new anakrusid species, Auliela taplowensis. A number of other entactiniids and the first recorded Ordovician ‘rotasphaerids’ are placed in open nomenclature. Graptolite faunas of the Malongulli Formation indicate that the deposits range in age from the Eastonian Zone of Dicranograptus hians kirki to the Bolindian Zone of Climacograptus uncinatus, that is, from latest Caradoc to early or middle Ashgill in age. This is only the second known well-preserved radiolarian assemblage to be illustrated from Late Ordovician (late Caradoc–Ashgill) successions, and the earliest known from Australia. The radiolarians typically occur in tabularly shaped, laminated lime-mudstone clasts with an abundance of siliceous sponge remains. These clasts appear to be formed from peri-platform ooze of the ‘deeper-water’ slope facies, which became incorporated in debris flows moving into the adjoining basin.

Actinopterygian vertebral centra are more common in the Pennsylvanian and Early Permian of central North America than was previously known. The oldest record dates from the Early Carboniferous of England. Stratigraphic occurrence, co-occurring vertebrate fauna, histology, and external morphology contradict a previous interpretation as centra of “holosteans.” The centra are assigned here to Palaeoniscoidea indet. Besides centra in haplolepids, these are the only known actinopterygian centra from the Paleozoic. The so-called caudal centra in Pygopterus are the bases of hypurals.

Interfacial methods are a group of newly emerging techniques for recovering phosphatic microfossils from disaggregated sediment residues by exploiting the lipophilic surface properties of apatite (Freeman, 1982). When a sediment residue is placed in a two-phase mixture of water and a water-insoluble organic liquid, the organic liquid wets the phosphate particles in preference to the gangue minerals, most species of which are wetted by the water instead.

Approximately 10,000 determinable specimens of Pentremites pulchellus Ulrich (Blastoidea, Echinodermata) from a single quarry in the Pella Formation near Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Iowa, have been examined for abnormal morphologic characters. The total frequency (2.7%) and the frequency among different types of abnormalities (ambulacral 29%; basal 46%; symmetrical 12%) are significantly different in the Pella material than in previously published studies (Wanner, 1932; Macurda, 1980). The greater frequency of abnormalities in the Pella Formation than in previous studies may reflect higher environmental stress because of variable temperatures or salinities or both. The kinds of abnormalities are the same among published studies, which suggest that the underlying biological causes of abnormalities were similar throughout the geologic history of the blastoids. Ambulacral abnormalities are symmetrically distributed, but the division and inversion of basal plates show an asymmetrical distribution as previously recorded by Macurda (1980). The Pella Formation is of Genevievian age (Upper Mississippian) based on the occurrence of Pugnoides ottumwa (White) and convex ambulacra in Pentremites pulchellus. Other unequivocal guide fossils are unknown in the Pella Formation.

Dinnebitodon amarali, a new genus and species of Tritylodontidae, is described from the Early Jurassic Kayenta Formation of northeastern Arizona. It is distinguished from Kayentatherium wellesi by the possession of three (rather than one) upper incisors and upper postcanine teeth with two (rather than three) lingual cusps.

Micropaleontologists can benefit from measurements of microfossil morphology in studies of taxonomy, stratigraphy, and evolution. Morphometric data can be used to clarify evolutionary relationships, increase biostratigraphic resolution within lineages, and identify ecophenotypes. Morphometric data also provides a means for objectively reporting and summarizing large numbers of microscopic observations.

An unusual occurrence of a colony of microcrinoids from shale within a fragment of a large orthoconic nautiloid body chamber is described from the Imo Formation (Mississippian, Chesterian) near Elba, Arkansas. The colony, about 70 individuals, consists principally of immature specimens that lack facets for the arms, and a few mature specimens with four or five arm facets. The crinoids are interpreted as record of a census population that was engulfed suddenly by mud. The crinoids are assigned to Allagecrinus coronarius Gutschick, 1968. The body chamber may have been broken during predation by other large cephalopods, or sharks, known from the Imo, or by post-mortem transport. The shell served as a firm substrate on which the microcrinoid larvae could settle and the convex sides may have provided some protection from currents.

Amphissites insignis Croneis and Thurman, 1939, is a readily identifiable ostracode species because of the unique configuration of carinae and ridges on the surface of the valves. The species had adapted to both shale and limestone environments of deposition, has a wide geographic distribution in the United States (Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Montana, Nevada, Tennessee, and Texas), and is confined to the uppermost part of the Chesterian Series (foraminiferal zones 18 and 19). The description of this species is amended and specimens are illustrated for the first time from Nevada, Montana, Arkansas, and Tennessee, indicating that the species is a biostratigraphic indicator of the uppermost part of the Chesterian sedimentary sequence. Ontogenetic development of A. insignis is reconstructed. A. sp. 1 (Late Mississippian) and A. sp. 2 (Early Pennsylvanian) are illustrated in open nomenclature.

The Swan Hills are erosional remnants of a once-continuous plateau lying between the Athabaska River and Lesser Slave Lake in the north-central part of Alberta, western Canada. Fossils were first discovered in the Paskapoo Formation here in 1964 by L. S. Russell, who described a small mammalian fauna from Swan Hills Site-1 (Russell, 1967). Russell's collection from Site-1 was interpreted (correctly) as representing the Tiffanian Land-Mammal Age (Late Paleocene). Of particular interest, Russell (1967) described a new primate species of the plesiadapiform family Carpolestidae, “Carpolestes” cygneus, based on fragmentary remains from Site-1. This species was later transferred to Carpodaptes by Rose (1975). Judging from the evolutionary grade of Carpodaptes cygneus, Rose (1977) regarded Swan Hills Site-1 as early or early middle Tiffanian in age. Additional work on C. cygneus at other Canadian sites indicated that Site-1 might be early late Tiffanian in age (Krause, 1978). This distinction is important because Carpodaptes has a more detailed evolutionary record in Wyoming and Montana, and correct attribution of the name C. cygneus, originally based on three isolated teeth, to samples better known elsewhere necessarily requires precise correlation. The holotype and type sample of C. cygneus, by themselves, are too fragmentary and limited to characterize the species. Species of Carpodaptes are among the most common and useful fossils available for precise dating of sediments associated with Laramide tectonic deformation in the Western Interior. At 55° north latitude, Swan Hills Site-1 remains the most northerly locality in North America yielding Paleocene mammals.

Delthyris sculptilis Hall, 1843, from the Middle Devonian Hamilton Group of New York and equivalent rocks elsewhere in eastern North America, has long been assigned to the genus Delthyris or, in certain older studies, to the genus Spirifer. Recent restudy of this brachiopod shows that it belongs to the genus Megakozlowskiella Boucot, 1962. This extends the upper limit of Megakozlowskiella from the Eifelian (Southwood Stage, Onondaga Limestone in New York) to the Givetian (Tioughnioga Stage, Moscow Formation of the Hamilton Group in New York).

The new flexible crinoid Para clidochirus n. gen. is described, with P. keyserensis (Springer, 1920) as the type species. A new species, P. schultzi, is described from the Late Devonian of Idaho.

North American pantodonts have mostly been recovered from the Rocky Mountain states. However, none has previously been accurately reported from Utah. Reference to Coryphodon was made by Cope in 1872 under the name Bathmodon, to which others (e.g., Marsh, 1876) later referred, but this probably was in error. The reported material apparently came from southwestern Wyoming rather than northeastern Utah. An undescribed coryphodontid jaw, though, has been collected from Eocene deposits in the Uinta Basin.

Haystack Cave, Gunnison County, Colorado, has provided the first collection of vertebrate remains from the Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) of western Colorado. Two carbon 14 analyses of bone apatite have produced dates of 14,935 ± 610 and 12,154 ± 1,700 years B.P. for this assemblage. This fauna, in conjunction with pollen studies, indicates the Gunnison Basin was largely unforested grassland/sagebrush shrubland in the lower basin, with open coniferous forests extending to the edges of the basin, during the late Pleistocene. The fauna also extends the known Pleistocene range of Lagurus curtatus, Phenacomys intermedius, Spilogale putorius, and Acinonyx trumani.

A lower molar of a new species of rodent, Prosciurus? shantungensis, from the subsurface of eastern China adds to the diversity of the known Asian prosciurine aplodontids and increases the likelihood that aplodontids were widespread in Eurasia during the Oligocene. This form is structurally close to the North American prosciurine aplodontids, especially Prosciurus relictus from the middle Oligocene. The metaconid is strongly compressed and reduced in height, a condition partially developed in P. relictus but here more extreme. Height of the mesoconid and the degree of lophodonty are more advanced than in North American species of Prosciurus. P.? shantungensis differs from the prosciurine-like lower dentitions from Kazakhstan and Mongolia described by Argyropulo (1939) and Kowalski (1974) in crest development and in details of the cusp morphology. Types of the Asian prosciurine or presumed prosciurine species are upper dentitions for which associated lower dentitions are unknown, yet the slope of the crests in Prosciurus lohiculus is too low to match the occlusal surface in P.? shantungensis and the degree of lophodonty in P. arboraptus is less than would be expected for the upper dentition of the Shantung form.

The genus Ardea includes all living species of large herons. Brodkorb (1963) listed five fossil species of Ardea, and only one fossil species has since been described. Of these six, only two are unquestionably members of the genus Ardea. Ardea brunhuberi von Ammon, 1918, from the Upper Miocene Brown Coal Formation, Württemburg, Germany, was moved by Brodkorb (1980) to the Phalacrocoracidae as Phalacrocorax brunhuberi. Brodkorb (1980) considered A. lignitum Giebel, 1860, from the Sarmatian Brown Coal of Rippersroda, Thuringia, Germany, to be a large owl in the genus Bubo. Olson (1985) similarly regards A. perplexa from the Astaracian of Sansan, France, to be a large owl, possibly in the genus Bubo. The type of Ardea aureliensis Milne-Edwards, 1871, from the Oreleanian of Suevres, France, has never been illustrated or restudied and its affinities need to be confirmed (Olson, 1985). The valid fossil species are Ardea polkensis Brodkorb, 1955, from the late Hemphillian Bone Valley Mining District, Florida, and A. howardae Brodkorb, 1980, from the Plio/Pleistocene Shungura Formation, Omo Basin, Ethiopia. A large species of Ardea is also known from the late Clarendonian Love Bone Bed local fauna, Florida, but is based on material too fragmentary for specific identification (Becker, 1985). This note reports the earliest certain occurrence of Ardea now known.

The Mississippian was a time of widespread diversification of pelmatozoan echinoderms in the United States. The crinoids and blastoids were diverse and abundant in a variety of geologic settings. Most of the Osagean occurrences of blastoids are associated with platform carbonates such as the Burlington Limestone. These blastoids lived in association with a crinoid community dominated by camerate crinoids. Blastoids also lived in coeval Osagean deltaic environments such as the Borden Delta but were less diverse and abundant.