The change in ancient atmospheric CO2 concentrations provides important clues for understanding the relationship between the atmospheric CO2 concentration and global temperature. However, the lack of CO2 evolution curves estimated from a single terrestrial proxy prevents the understanding of climatic and environmental impacts due to variations in data. Thus, based on the stomatal index of fossi...

Bandicoots (Peramelemorphia) are a major order of australidelphian marsupials, which despite a fossil record spanning at least the past 25 million years and a pandemic Australasian range, remain poorly understood in terms of their evolutionary relationships. Many living peramelemorphians are critically endangered, making this group an important focus for biological and conservation research. To...

Eastern Asia (EA) is a key region for the diversification of flowering plants in the Northern Hemisphere, but few studies have focused on the biogeographic history within EA in the context of the other northern continents. Polygonatum is an important medicinal genus widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere with its highest species richness in EA, and it represents an excellent model for st...

This study unravels the evolution and biogeographic history of the globally distributed ant genus Crematogaster on the basis of a molecular phylogeny, reconstructed from five nuclear protein-coding genes and a total of 3384 bp of sequence data. A particular emphasis is placed on the evolutionary history of these ants in the Malagasy region. Bayesian and likelihood analyses performed on a datase...

Tragulids are common in the Early Miocene through Pliocene Siwalik faunas of the Indian Subcontinent where they are represented by as many as 17 species. Large collections of Siwalik fossils have recently been made by collaborative projects from Harvard University, the University of Arizona, the Geological Survey of Pakistan, and the Pakistan Museum of Natural History. The collections together ...

Sakhalin has been affected by several phases of Cretaceous and Tertiary deformation due to the complex interaction of plates in the northwest Pacific region. A detailed understanding of the strain is important because it will provide constraints on platescale processes that control the formation and deformation of marginal sedimentary basins. Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) data wer...

Giraffids include the only living giraffomorph ruminants and are diagnosed by the presence of bi-lobed canines and a special type of epiphyseal cranial appendages called ossicones. The family Giraffidae ranges from the latest early Miocene until today. However they are currently extant relics with only two living representatives, the African genera Okapia and Giraffa. Giraffids were much more d...

A huge wetland (the 'Pebas system') covered western Amazonia during the Miocene, hosting a highly diverse and endemic aquatic fauna. One of the most contentious issues concerns the existence, potential pathways and effects of marine incursions on this ecosystem. Palaeontological evidences (body fossils) are rare. The finding of a new, presumably marine ostracod species (Pellucistoma curupira sp...