An isolated turtle xiphiplastron similar to that of Puppigerus sp. is described from the upper Oligocene (27.3–25.2 Ma) Pomahaka Formation near Tapanui, Otago, New Zealand. The bone is unlike any previously described turtle from the Cenozoic of New Zealand and is from a newly recognized estuarine vertebrate locality. It represents the first Oligocene cheloniid turtle bone described from the southwest Pacific.
Henry J. L. Gard [henrygard@hotmail.
Grypania spiralis (Walcott) Walter et al., a macroalga previously reported in pre-Ediacaran successions, has been collected, together with abundant macrofossils (i.e., the Wenghui biota), from black shales of the upper Doushantuo Formation (ca 593 to 551 Ma) in northeastern Guizhou, South China. Morphologically, G. spiralis represents a carbonaceous ribbon with a continuum of forms from coiled to nearly straight. Its helicoid main body might have been suspended in the water column for photosynthesis with one end anchored or nestled into soft sediments. Grypania possessed morphological stability, and its habit endowed great competitiveness for sunlight. Remarkably, it did not change significantly in size or morphology over more than 1200 Myrs.
Ye Wang [gboywangye@126.
We describe an isolated osteoderm from the Albian Griman Creek Formation where it is exposed near the town of Lightning Ridge in central-northern New South Wales, Australia. Several lines of evidence allow referral of this element to the Ankylosauria—a group that epitomises body armour and ubiquitous osteodermal coverage among dinosaurs. Despite the abundant record of fossil vertebrates from this interval, ankylosaurians have not been previously reported, although, they have been described from penecontemporaneous deposits in western Queensland and Victoria. This discovery, therefore, provides an important link between the northerly faunas (including the Griman Creek Formation) that flourished at the edge of the epeiric Eromanga Sea, with those from the sub-polar rift-valley system of Victoria during the mid-Cretaceous.
Phil R. Bell [pbell23@une.
Numerous small specimens of hypercalcified sponges of the genus Plectroninia (Jurassic to Recent) are recorded from deep water in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, where they are attached to diverse hard substrata, mostly scleractinian skeletons. Being represented as skeletons of linked calcareous tetractines with an incomplete free spicule complement, the specimens could not be identified at the species level. These observations show that Plectroninia spp. have a wide distribution in the bathyal zone of the Recent World Ocean, where they may be the most common calcareous sponges.
Jean Vacelet* [jean.
Few Cenozoic lungfish fossils consist of articulated, associated bones and tooth plates. Mioceratodus gregoryi from the Paleogene (Eocene) deposit of the Redbank Plains Formation in southeast Queensland is unusual in this respect because the fossil includes tooth plates and elements of the skull. An analysis of the material and reconstruction of the skull and associated skeletal material provides new insights into the fish and its environment. The fish has a mandible with a wide separation between the lower tooth-bearing bones, and a strong ceratohyal bone. This suggests that, like the extant Australian lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri, the fossil fish had a moveable basihyal that could be inserted between the prearticular bones to seal the oral cavity. This would have allowed the fish to draw food, air and water into the mouth, and dig holes by sucking mud into the oral cavity and blowing it out again, all useful attributes for a fish that lived in a shallow freshwater lake. The living Australian lungfish has similar structures in the mandible and hyoid apparatus, and performs comparable actions. The occipital ribs, also preserved in the Redbank Plains fossil, are embedded in hypaxial muscles and not moveable. It is unlikely that these ribs have any influence on the suctorial process in these two species.
Anne Kemp [a.
Extant tettigarctids are also known as hairy cicadas because they are covered by long and abundant hairs. This character had not been reported in fossil species of Tettigarctidae because previous examples were poorly preserved or lacked long hairs. Hirtaprosbole erromera gen. et sp. nov. (Tettigarctidae) with a hairy body, from the latest Middle Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation of Daohugou, Inner Mongolia, China, is described here. This new species provides evidence that tettigarctids with long dense hairs had appeared by the latest Middle Jurassic and lived at high altitudes.
Xiao-hui Liu [liuxh8917@163.
Omma Newman is an extant ommatid genus currently endemic to Australia. A new Omma species, O. daxishanense sp. nov. is described and illustrated based on a compression fossil from the Upper Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation at Daxishan, a fossil locality well known for yielding mammals, feathered dinosaurs and diverse pterosaurs. Omma daxishanense is very similar morphologically to the extant O. sagitta, but differs from the latter by its broader body and prominent temples. The new discovery documents the first valid Omma species from the Mesozoic of China and highlights the antiquity and palaeodiversity of the extant Australian endemic genus.
Chenyang Cai [cycai@nigpas.
The ‘tuning-fork’ didymograptid previously referred to as Didymograpt(ell)us protobifidus is common in Victoria where it is confined to the Chewtonian (mid-Floian). Biometric differences indicate that the mid-Floian form is not conspecific with the holotype of the Darriwilian Didymograptus protobifidus Elles, 1933 and the Floian form is thus renamed Didymograptellus kremastus n. sp. Study of the Valhallfonna Formation faunas on Spitsbergen indicated that the Floian form of D. ‘protobifidus’ differs from Didymograptellus bifidus (Hall) in both its morphology and stratigraphic distribution but a later study of the Cow Head Group on Newfoundland concluded that they are one species. My study, of more than 50 specimens of Didymograptellus from the Floian of Victoria, Australia, shows that the two are different and that similar differences exist in the Cow Head Group populations of Didymograptellus. The Chewtonian (Ch1) Didymograptellus protobifidus Biozone is renamed D. kremastus Biozone.
Alfons H.M. Vandenberg, [lanceolatus@hotmail.
The record of fossil fish from the Pleistocene of Argentina is poor. Here we describe the first ichthyofauna from Late Pleistocene riverbank beds in the Salado River of Santa Fe Province, Argentina. The material consists of isolated pectoral and dorsal fin spines, together with skull fragments. Four species-level taxa referable to three families can be identified: Pterodoras granulosus (Doradidae), Pimelodus cf. maculatus and Pimelodus cf. albicans (Pimelodidae) and cf. Hypostomus sp. (Loricariidae). Specimens attributed to Pterodoras granulosus and Pimelodus maculatus represent a minimum age for origin of these taxa. The Salado River assemblage includes the richest record of Pleistocene catfishes yet documented from southern South America.
Evelyn Romina Vallone [evelynvallone@conicet.
Six conodont and one fusuline zones are recognized on basis of a total of 25 conodont and 13 fusuline species (including seven unidentified species or species given with cf. or aff. in total) from the Bamchi Formation, Yeongwol, Korea. The conodont zones include the Streptognathodus bellus, S. isolatus, S. cristellaris, S. sigmoidalis, S. fusus and S. barskovi zones in ascending order, which can be correlated with the conodont zones spanning the uppermost Gzhelian to Asselian Age of the Permian globally. The fusuline zone is named the Rugosofusulina complicata–Pseudoschwagerina paraborealis zone. The co-occurrence of the conodont Streptognathodus isolatus (the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point index for the base of Permian) and Pseudoschwagerina (a Permian inflated fusuline) indicates that the Carboniferous–Permian boundary can be placed in the lower part of the Bamchi Formation in South Korea.
Qiulai Wang* [qlwang@nigpas.
A new grylloblattid (Permoshurabia argentina sp. nov.: Geinitziidae) is described and illustrated from the Upper Triassic of Argentina. The material represents the first record of this family from Argentina and expands the geographic distribution of this group during the Triassic.
María Belén Lara [lara.
Three new species of glypheoid decapod crustaceans, Mecochirus mcclymontorum, M. bartholomaii and M. lanceolatus, are described from the late Aptian of the Eromanga, Carpentaria and Maryborough basins, respectively. The first two occur in the Doncaster Member of the Wallumbilla Formation and the last in the Maryborough Formation. This is the first record of Mecochirus Germar, 1827 or the Mecochiridae Van Straelen, 1925 in Australia and one of only a few Cretaceous occurrences of this largely Jurassic genus.
Peter A. Jell [amjell@bigpond.
The discovery of a well-preserved dragonfly forewing in the Upper Jurassic Talbragar Fish Bed near Gulgong and attributed to Austroprotolindenia jurassica Beattie & Nel allows this taxon to be placed in Protolindeniidae. It extends the palaeogeographical distribution of this family, previously known only from the Jurassic of Europe, to Australia.
André Nel [anel@mnhn.
Historical fossil insect collections from England were re-examined and the taxa revised. Lateophlebia gen. nov. is erected for Liassophlebia anglicanopsis (Zeuner) in Campterophlebiidae. Petrophlebia anglicana Tillyard is confirmed in this family and Archithemis liassina (Strickland) is transferred to this family. Lastly, Archithemis brodiei (Geinitz), Archithemis Handlirsch, and Architemistidae Tillyard (reduced to this sole species) are transferred to the Heterophlebioidea.
Richard Kelly [richard.
Encrustation is rare on late Cambrian and Tremadocian brachiopods of Baltica. The encrusting fauna is represented by a single taxon, Marcusodictyon. Only Schmidtites celatus is encrusted in the Furongian of Estonia. The Marcusodictyon–Schmidtites association is the earliest example of syn vivo encrustation and symbiosis from the Baltica palaeocontinent. The encrusting faunas of the late Cambrian and Tremadocian of Baltica were unusual presumably owing to palaeogeographic reasons because the other known examples of early encrustation originate from lower palaeolatitudes.
Olev Vinn [olev.
Previously, Progiraffa exigua has been reported only from the Kamlial Formation (ca 18.3–14.2 Ma) of the Siwalik Group. We record Progiraffa exigua from the Lower Siwalik Subgroup at five localities: Jaba, Chinji Rest House, Rakh Wasnal, Dhok Bun Amir Khatoon and Ghungrila, Pakistan, thus extending the range of P. exigua to the Chinji Formation of the Siwalik Group (ca 14.2–11.2 Ma).
Kiran Aftab [kiranaftab2012@gmail.