A new fossil genus and species of fairyfly, Eotriadomeroides abjunctus Huber & Greenwalt, gen. sp. nov. (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Mymaridae), is described illustrated from a female preserved as compression in middle Eocene shale the Kishenehn Formation, Montana, USA. It compared to extant Neotriadomerus Huber, known only Australia, Triadomerus Yoshimoto, Cretaceous amber Canada. suggested...

Metatherians, which comprise marsupials and their closest fossil relatives, were one of the most dominant clades of mammals during the Cretaceous and are the most diverse clade of living mammals after Placentalia. Our understanding of this group has increased greatly over the past 20 years, with the discovery of new specimens and the application of new analytical tools. Here we provide a review...

Literature reports upper Cretaceous to Middle Eocene flysch/wildflysch deposits from Mexico, Guatemala, Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Granada, Trinidad, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Early papers recording their widespread distribution and noting their tectonic implications are often overlooked by popular palaeogeographic and plate tectonic reconstructions of the Caribbean area...

Ornithopods were key herbivorous dinosaurs in Mesozoic terrestrial ecosystems, with a variety of tooth morphologies. Several clades, especially the 'duck-billed' hadrosaurids, became hugely diverse and abundant almost worldwide. Yet their evolutionary dynamics have been disputed, particularly whether they diversified in response to events in plant evolution. Here we focus on their remarkable di...

An adult of a Ribbed Cocoon Maker Moth (Bucculatricidae) from Eocene Baltic amber is described as a new species (Bucculatrix rycki). This is the first description of a fossil adult of this microlepidopteran family, but previous evidence for this family comes from typical leaf mines in fossil leaves that provide evidence dating to the Upper Cretaceous. The minimal geological age for this adult s...

A new burmagomphid anisopteran, Satelitala soberana gen. et sp. nov. is described from the lower Eocene of Laguna del Hunco, Patagonia, Argentina. The new genus is characterised by hindwing characters such as the subdiscoidal triangle not elongated; anal loop divided longitudinally; paranal cell divided longitudinally; five terminal cells between RP and MA; five terminal cells between MP and Cu...

A new dinosaur of Early Cretaceous age was recently discovered in the Gobi Desert of northwest China. It is more closely related to Late Cretaceous hadrosaurids than to Early Cretaceous iguanodontids. It occupies the most basal position in the phylogeny of all duck-billed dinosaurs, or the Hadrosauroidea. This early hadrosauroid sheds new light on the origin of the herbivorous feeding specializ...

BACKGROUND The origin of hadrosaurid dinosaurs is far from clear, mainly due to the paucity of their early Late Cretaceous close relatives. Compared to numerous Early Cretaceous basal hadrosauroids, which are mainly from Eastern Asia, only six early Late Cretaceous (pre-Campanian) basal hadrosauroids have been found: three from Asia and three from North America. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS...