--"Falco" ramenta Wetmore 1936 is redescribed and moved to a new genus as Pedlofiierax ramenta (Wetmore). In addition to the holotypical distal end of the tarsometatarsus, this species is now known from a complete tarsometatarsus, humerus, and coracoid from mid-Miocene (Late Hemingfordian and Early Barstovian) fossil localities in the Sheep Creek and Olcott formations, northwestern Nebraska. Pe...

Climatic change, and in particular aridification, has played a dominant role in shaping Southern Hemisphere biotas since the mid-Neogene. In Australia, ancient and geologically stable ranges within the vast arid zone have functioned as refugia for populations of mesic taxa extirpated from surrounding areas, yet the extent to which relicts may be linked to major aridification events before or af...

Although geomorphic observations suggest that the Sierra Nevada has tilted so that the crest has risen 1–2 km since late Miocene time, deuterium and oxygen-18 isotope concentrations in Cenozoic geologic materials decrease eastward across California and Nevada similarly to those in modern, orographically induced precipitation, as if little change in Sierra Nevadan elevations has occurred since E...

Three new species and two new genera of Thylacinidae from the Northern Territory of Australia bring the total number of known mid and late Tertiary species to 11 in eight genera. Tyarrpecinus rothi gen. et sp. nov. from the Alcoota Local Fauna (Waite Formation), and Nimbacinus richi sp. nov. and Mutpuracinus archibaldi gen. et sp. nov. from the Bullock Creek Local Fauna (Camfield Beds), are rel...

Spider crabs (Majoidea) are well-known from modern oceans and are also common in the western part of the Atlantic Ocean. When spider crabs appeared in the Western Atlantic in deep time, and when they became diverse, hinges on their fossil record. By reviewing their fossil record, we show that (1) spider crabs first appeared in the Western Atlantic in the Late Cretaceous, (2) they became common ...

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...

Whale-fall communities support a deep-sea invertebrate assemblage that subsists entirely on the decaying carcasses of large cetaceans. The oldest whale-falls are Late Eocene in age, but these early whale-falls differ in faunal content and host cetacean size from Neogene and Recent whale-falls. Vesicomyid bivalves, for example, are major components of the sulphophilic stage in Miocene and Recent...

The fossil ape Lufengpithecus is known from a number of late Miocene sites in Yunnan Province in southern China. Along with other fossil apes from South and Southeast Asia, it is widely considered to be a relative of the extant orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus. It is best represented at the type site of Shihuiba (Lufeng) by several partial to nearly complete but badly crushed adult crania. There is, h...

Simulations suggest that molecular clock analyses can correctly identify the root of a tree even when the clock assumption is severely violated. Clock-based rooting of phylogenies may be particularly useful when outgroup rooting is problematic. Here, we explore relaxed-clock rooting in the Acer/Dipteronia clade of Sapindaceae, which comprises genera of highly uneven species richness and problem...

BACKGROUND Old World vultures are likely polyphyletic, representing two subfamilies, the Aegypiinae and Gypaetinae, and some genera of the latter may be of independent origin. Evidence concerning the origin, as well as the timing of the divergence of each subfamily and even genera of the Gypaetinae has been elusive. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Compared with the Old World, the New World has...