We report the discovery of an enigmatic, small eel-like fish from a 35 m-deep fringing-reef cave in the western Pacific Ocean Republic of Palau that exhibits an unusual suite of morphological characters. Many of these uniquely characterize the Recent [...]
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Feeding arms carrying coelomic extensions of the theca are thought to be unique to crinoids among stemmed echinoderms. However, a new two-armed echinoderm from the earliest Middle Cambrian of Spain displays a highly unexpected morphology. X-ray [...] Extinct species of Malleodectes gen. nov. from Middle to Late Miocene deposits of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, northwestern Queensland, Australia are enigmatic, highly specialized, probably snail-eating marsupials. Dentally, they closely [...] The oldest theropod dinosaurs are known from the Carnian of Argentina and Brazil. However, the evolutionary diversification of this group after its initial radiation but prior to the Triassic–Jurassic boundary is still poorly understood because [...] The cingulates of the mammalian order Xenarthra present a typical case of disagreement between molecular and morphological phylogenetic studies. We report here the discovery of two new skulls from the Late Oligocene Salla Beds of Bolivia (approx. 26 [...] Palaeobiogeographic reconstructions are underpinned by phylogenies, divergence times and ancestral area reconstructions, which together yield ancestral area chronograms that provide a basis for proposing and testing hypotheses of dispersal and [...] Carnivory has evolved independently several times in eutherian (including placental) and metatherian (including marsupial) mammals. We used geometric morphometrics to assess convergences associated with the evolution of carnivory across a broad suite [...] The timing and sequence of events underlying the origin and early evolution of vertebrates remains poorly understood. The palaeontological evidence should shed light on these issues, but difficulties in interpretation of the non-biomineralized fossil [...] Whales in the suborder Mysticeti are filter feeders that use baleen to sift zooplankton and small fish from ocean waters. Adult mysticetes lack teeth, although tooth buds are present in foetal stages. Cladistic analyses suggest that functional teeth [...] Sauropodomorph dinosaurs originated in the Southern Hemisphere in the Middle or Late Triassic and are commonly portrayed as spreading rapidly to all corners of Pangaea as part of a uniform Late Triassic to Early Jurassic cosmopolitan dinosaur fauna. [...] |
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