Scrippsiella trifida Lewis, 1991 ex Head, 1996 is a nontoxic marine calciodinelloidean dinoflagellate whose resting cyst has a distinctive wall containing large, erect, trifurcate, recurving calcareous processes that separate two organic layers. We show that the organic wall layers of living Scrippsiella trifida cysts are resistant to acetolysis and can therefore potentially fossilize, and we report on abundant Scrippsiella trifida cysts from latest Pleistocene and early Holocene marine sediments off eastern Canada, representing the first confirmed fossil discovery of this species in the North Atlantic. A reappraisal of late Quaternary palynological records now shows that the organic remains of Scrippsiella trifida cysts have been widely misidentified as cysts of Alexandrium tamarense (Lebour, 1925) Balech, 1985, a goniodomacean (and hence noncalcareous) dinoflagellate and major cause of paralytic shellfish poisoning in humans. The morphology of these two cyst types is contrasted, and the modern and fossil distribution of Scrippsiella trifida cysts in sediments of the North Atlantic and adjacent areas is now clarified. It is apparent from this distribution that Scrippsiella trifida favors neritic environments characterized by cool winters and relatively warm (14°–25°C) summers. Extremely high fluxes of S. trifida cysts in nearshore areas off Nova Scotia and southern Greenland during deglaciation and early postglacial time (14–7 ka) have no modern analog but may signal a reduction in salinity caused by meltwater discharge. In general, the organic walls of calcareous dinoflagellate cysts are more common components of palynological assemblages than hitherto realized.

Radiolaria of the families Haplotaeniatumidae Won, Blodgett, and Nestor, 2002 and Inaniguttidae Nazarov and Ormiston, 1984 were recovered from the Llandovery and lower Wenlock of the Cape Phillips Formation on Cornwallis Island, Nunavut, Canada. Three new species of haplotaeniatumids are described. Haplotaeniatum fissura n. sp. is diagnosed by a densely constructed outer layer around a less dense interior; Haplotaeniatum nunavutensis n. sp. has small, circular pores separated by wide lattice bars; and Orbiculopylorum granti n. sp. possesses robust external spines. Haplotaeniatumids described in open nomenclature are Haplotaeniatum labyrintheum?, Haplotaeniatum aff. cathenatum, Haplotaeniatum cf. raneatela, Haplotaeniatum species A, Orbiculopylorum aff. adobensis, Orbiculopylorum cf. marginatum and Orbiculopylorum species A. Gyrosphaera Noble and Maletz, 2000 is synonymized with Haplotaeniatum. The Inaniguttidae are assigned to Plussatispila n. gen. The genus is diagnosed by two, well-spaced lattice shells and at least seven main spines; additional shells may be present. Plussatispila magnilimax n. sp. has a total of four shells, and P. cornwallisensis n. sp. a total of three. Plussatispila delicata n. sp. has only the two fundamental shells of the genus and is slightly more delicate than the other inaniguttids. Plussatispila pellicia n. sp. possesses weakly developed spines and may have additional irregular layers.

Hexactinosidan sponges are important reef-building organisms in Earth history as they are able to create a three-dimensional reef framework and thereby form topographic relief comparable to that produced by scleractinian corals. Study of modern hexactinosidan sponge skeletons from water depths of 165–240 m on the continental shelf off British Columbia, Canada, demonstrate the hitherto undescribed frame-building process that leads to the formation of large and so far unique siliceous sponge reefs in this area. The fundamentals of the frame-building process are based on the production of siliceous envelopes around spicules of dead hexactinosidan sponges. In addition to the development of a three-dimensional reef framework, mound growth is supported by the current baffling effect of the sponges. Fine-grained siliciclastic suspended sediment is trapped and deposited within the gaps in the sponge skeletons and in voids in the reef surface preventing the framework from collapsing as the reef grows.

Analogous but tropical examples from the Lower Jurassic of Portugal show that the frame-building potential of hexactinosidan and other siliceous sponges has existed, substantially unchanged, for more than 180 million years. In contrast to well-known fossil mud mounds of various geologic ages, in which the in situ precipitation of automicrite via microbial processes plays a major role, the matrix of the hexactinosidan sponge mounds of British Columbia consists exclusively of baffled fine-grained siliciclastics; automicrite is absent. Existing mud mound classification schemes do not encompass these depositional characteristics, therefore this new type of mound is consequently here classified as a silicate mound.

Discovery of avicularium-like polymorphs in Wilbertopora mutabilis Cheetham, 1954 has provided not only a new opportunity for revising the genus Wilbertopora Cheetham, 1954, but also a more detailed basis for documenting the series of morphological changes by which avicularia differentiated from ordinary feeding zooids in what appears to be the first occurrence of these characteristic cheilostome bryozoan structures in the fossil record.

Eighteen of a total 60 quantitative characters measured on avicularia and ordinary and ovicell-bearing autozooids were sufficient to distinguish eight species of Wilbertopora by discriminant function analysis of zooid data from 93 colonies from the mid-Cretaceous (Albian-Cenomanian) Washita Group in northeastern Texas and southeastern Oklahoma. Eighteen of a total of 20 of the quantitative characters that could be statistically coded for cladistic analysis proved to be informative with respect to parsimony, providing two maximally parsimonious trees for the eight species. Two-thirds of the diagnostic characters involve avicularia. An additional 55 colonies too poorly preserved for morphometric analysis could then be assigned to species qualitatively, with 170 more colonies lacking species-diagnostic characters.

The cladistic trees strongly suggest that most or all of the species diverged before the end of the Albian, but stratigraphic resolution is insufficient to test this hypothesis. Nevertheless, the series of morphological changes differentiating avicularia from ordinary autozooids in these species, based on the cladistic relationships, is highly significant statistically, and may be a pattern later repeated in other cheilostomes.

Wilbertopora and W. mutabilis are emended, and seven new species are described: W. listokinae, W. tappanae, W. spatulifera, W. attenuata, W. improcera, W. acuminata, and W. hoadleyae.

Reexamination of type and topotype material revealed the presence of well-developed ventral and dorsal interareas in two virgianid brachiopods from South China, Eoconchidium jiangshanensis Liang (in Liu et al., 1983) and Paraconchidium shiqianensis Rong, Xu, and Yang, 1974, of Late Ordovician and Early Silurian ages, respectively. A cladistic analysis of the common virgianid taxa, incorporating new data on the development of interareas, confirms Paraconchidium Rong, Xu, and Yang, 1974 as a valid genus (not a junior synonym of Pseudoconchidium Nikiforova and Sapelnikov, 1971) and warrants E. jiangshanensis as the type species of Deloprosopus new genus (not allied to either Eoconchidium or Tcherskidium as previously believed). Our preliminary survey on the suborder Pentameridina, based on available material or illustrations of well-preserved, disarticulated (typically silicified) valves, indicates that 1) the interareas are more commonly developed in the superfamily Pentameroidea than was reported previously, especially in the families Virgianidae and Subrianidae; 2) the ventral and dorsal interareas commonly do not occur as paired planar surfaces in the Pentameroidea, as they do in the superfamily Stricklandioidea; and 3) despite the common absence of a ventral interarea, the development of a sharply delimited dorsal interarea appears to be ubiquitous in the Pentameroidea and possibly in the suborder Pentameridina. In the currently adopted classification, the presence of matching ventral and dorsal interareas is treated as one of the diagnostic characters that separate Stricklandioidea from other superfamilies of the Pentameridina. The new data presented herein on the development of interareas imply the need to reevaluate the taxonomic and evolutionary significance of the ventral and dorsal interareas, pending a thorough survey on their distribution in the suborder Pentameridina.

Paleobiogeographic patterns of decapod crustaceans from the Southern Hemisphere, based upon 441 species-level records arrayed in 154 genera, document global patterns of distribution that can be compared to those previously published on decapods from the North Pacific and Central American regions. All known records of decapods from the Southern Hemisphere spanning the Early Triassic to Pleistocene have been compiled, nearly all have been personally verified, and patterns of origin and distribution have been interpreted. Interchange between hemispheres, including amphitropical and bipolar distributions, are recognized from Jurassic to post–Miocene time. The high southern latitudes was a site of origin of several generic-level taxa during the Jurassic through Eocene and many of these taxa have been identified in subsequent times in lower latitude regions in shallow- and deepwater environments in both hemispheres. The isolation of Antarctica due to ocean currents significantly diminished the role of the high southern latitudes as an area of origin for decapods. The Tethys was an important dispersal pathway for decapods during the Cretaceous through early Miocene. Endemism was high during the Eocene, similar to the North Pacific and Central America. The magnitude of the Cretaceous/Paleogene extinction event on the Southern Hemisphere decapod fauna was not profound; most Cretaceous extinctions seem to have occurred well before the end of the Cretaceous, and 85% of the Cretaceous families are known from the Paleogene in the Southern Hemisphere taxa.

The Germig Formation of the Tethyan Himalaya of southern Tibet contains an exceptionally abundant bivalve fauna which has been found in association with choristoceratid and psiloceratid ammonoids and spans the Triassic/Jurassic boundary. The bivalve fauna consists of 25 species, including four new species: Newaagia lanonglaensis, Persia hallami, Liostrea tibetica, and Ctenostreon newelli. The fauna comprises three biostratigraphically controlled bivalve assemblages: 1) an upper Rhaetian Palaeocardita–Krumbeckiella Assemblage including seven species; 2) a high diversity transitional Rhaetian-Hettangian Persia–Plagiostoma Assemblage with many as 19 species; and 3) a low diversity lower Hettangian Liostrea–Chlamys Assemblage containing three species. The transitional Rhaetian-Hettangian Assemblage is dominated by cementing species and exhibits a high degree of endemism. A large proportion of lower latitude and cementing taxa from the lower two levels may indicate that they inhabited shallow subtidal tropic or subtropic paleoenvironments.

Eighteen gastropod and seven bivalve species are reported from Eocene to Oligocene cold-seep carbonates in Washington State, USA. Four species are new (Niso littlei, Turrinosyrinx hickmanae, Xanthodaphne? campbellae, and Lurifax goederti), and 16 are described in open nomenclature. Previously unknown features of protoconch or prodissoconch morphology and/or shell microstructure are provided for Retiskenea statura (Goedert and Benham), Provanna antiqua Squires, Nuculana? aff. N. grasslei Allen, and Bathymodiolus willapaensis (Squires and Goedert). Modiolus (M.) willapaensis is placed within Bathymodiolus based on the elliptical-triangular shape of its juvenile shell, indicating that the divergence between vent/seep and whale/wood-fall inhabiting bathymodiolines took place at least 40 Ma. The first fossil species of the vent/seep genera Pyropelta (Pyropeltidae), Lurifax (family uncertain), and Catillopecten? (Propeamussidae) are reported. Niso (Eulimidae), Xanthodaphne, Turrinosyrinx, Benthomangelia (Turridae), Ledella (Nuculanidae), Tindaria? (Tindariidae), and Delectopecten (Pectinidae) are reported for the first time from fossil cold-seep assemblages. Larval developmental strategies are inferred from protoconch and prodissoconch morphologies in 14 species, which largely reflect the species' phylogenetic groups, as in modern vent and seep molluscs. The data presented here indicate that the radiation of toxoglossate turrids (Gastropoda) into deep water took place already in the Oligocene, and not in the Miocene as previously thought. Healed shell injuries and presumed naticid drill holes represent the oldest known fossil evidence of predation at cold-seeps.

Two isolated cephalopod jaws recovered from the middle Turonian of the Obira area and the Campanian of the Nakagawa area, Hokkaido, Japan, consist of short outer, and large and posteriorly elongated inner “chitinous” lamellae, with a sharply pointed rostrum in the outer lamella. These features are common with the upper jaws of Recent cephalopods. Comparison with the upper jaws of ammonoids and Recent cephalopods indicates that the two Cretaceous upper jaws are attributed to the Coleoidea other than the Octopodida. This assignment is also suggested by the cladistic analysis of the Nakagawa specimen compared with five upper jaw characters on 22 Recent cephalopod species. The Obira specimen differs from the Nakagawa specimen in having a much smaller jaw and a larger jaw angle, but its order-level assignment could not be determined because of imperfect preservation. The Nakagawa specimen shares several common features with the upper jaws of Recent Oegopsina; thus we assigned its higher systematic position to this suborder. Based on the extremely large upper jaw (97 mm maximum length), a new genus and species (Yezoteuthis giganteus) is proposed. This new taxon would have been as large as the modern giant squid Architeuthis, which commonly exceeds more than 5 m in body length. Our study postulates that studies of jaws are important to reconstruct the phylogeny of the Coleoidea.

The fossils described here were collected from the Lower Triassic (Olenekian) at two Majiashan sections in Chaohu City, Anhui Province, East China. Nine species belonging to five genera are introduced, including a new genus, Chaohuichthys, and some undetermined or unnamed fish specimens are discussed. The fish assemblage from Majiashan covers most of the Lower Triassic marine bony fish taxa known from China.

Eosuchus minor (Marsh, 1870) is based on skeletal fragments from the Late Paleocene or Early Eocene of New Jersey, but more complete material from the Late Paleocene of New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia permits a detailed description and systematic assessment. It is a slender-snouted form and can be distinguished from most other crocodylians on the basis of an enlarged quadrate foramen aereum; a distinct W-shaped rugosity along the ventral margin of the basioccipital tuber; a prominent crest on the lateral braincase wall encompassing portions of the quadrate, pterygoid, and basisphenoid, forming the lateral wall of the lateral eustachian canal at its ventralmost extent; and arrangement of dentary alveoli into couplets. Specimens of larger crocodylians from the same units may represent either the adult form of E. minor or a separate taxon. The enlarged quadrate foramen aereum, couplet arrangement of dentary alveoli, and basioccipital tuber shape are shared with Eosuchus lerichei from the Late Paleocene of Europe. Eosuchus lies within Gavialoidea crownward of the basal forms Thoracosaurus and Eothoracosaurus. The braincase of Eosuchus is intermediate between that of Thoracosaurus and that of Gavialis; the basisphenoid retains a short (but externally visible) descending lamina, but the basisphenoid is also anteroposteriorly expanded at the level of the median eustachian foramen.

Postibullinid edrioasteroids are a small clade of discoidal edrioasteroids that are locally common members of Devonian to Pennsylvanian, shallow marine, hard substrate faunas in North America and Europe. A small discoidal theca, narrow, highly elevated ambulacral cover plates, a highly elevated anal pyramid, and in many forms a posterior oral protuberance characterize this clade (Bell, 1976b; Sumrall et al., 2000). Here we describe the oldest known postibullinid, Pyrgopostibulla belli n. gen. and sp., a species that differs from other postibullinids by having a well-developed pedunculate zone and a complex, five-plate pattern of ambulacral cover plates. A dense population of these edrioasteroids preserved at a single stratigraphic horizon provides a census sample of individuals that were killed as a part of a final and abrupt burial pulse on this Lower Devonian hardground (Cornell et al., 2003). As such, this case study provides insight into the ontogeny and colonization strategies of isorophinid edrioasteroids.

The eodiscina comprises small, isopygous trilobites with either two or three thoracic segments. Small eyes may be present, but several genera and species lack visual organs. Eodiscoids are characteristic elements of many Cambrian faunas and are important for correlations of upper Lower Cambrian and lower Middle Cambrian strata (e.g., Robison et al., 1977; Ahlberg and Bergström, 1993; Geyer and Shergold, 2000; Fletcher, 2003).