ON A MESOZOIC STROMATOPORA.,

A bottom-up perspective on ecosystem change in Mesozoic oceans

Mesozoic and Early Cenozoic marine animals across multiple phyla record secular trends in morphology, environmental distribution, and inferred behaviour that are parsimoniously explained in terms of increased selection pressure from durophagous predators. Another systemic change in Mesozoic marine ecosystems, less widely appreciated than the first, may help to explain the observed animal record...

The Mesozoic Lacustrine Revolution

The Mesozoic lacustrine revolution (MLR) represents a major evolutionary event in the continental realm (Cohen 2003 ). The decline in taxic diversity at the family level in lacustrine environments that took place during the late Paleozoic–Middle Triassic was reversed later in the Mesozoic, with diversifi cation seeming to have continued to the Quaternary, although potential biases may have affe...

A Field Trip to the Mesozoic

Traveling through time has become extremely popular. Since H.G. Wells’ famed novel, scientists have designed machines that can actually beam you into the future or into the deepness of time with the snap of a finger. Of course, destinations vary. Engineers and architects have a preference for Giza, 4,500 years ago, when the Great Pyramid was built. Resort enthusiasts might fancy the Dulce Vita ...

A Mesozoic bird from Gondwana preserving feathers

The fossil record of birds in the Mesozoic of Gondwana is mostly based on isolated and often poorly preserved specimens, none of which has preserved details on feather anatomy. We provide the description of a fossil bird represented by a skeleton with feathers from the Early Cretaceous of Gondwana (NE Brazil). The specimen sheds light on the homology and 3D structure of the rachis-dominated fea...

Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems and Biota