“Miacid” carnivorans comprise one of the modern mammal groups appearing around the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) in the Northern Hemisphere. Here we describe a new very small “miacid” carnivoran from the earliest Eocene of Dormaal, Belgium, that shares a particu− lar dental morphology with the species “Miacis” winkleri and “Miacis” rosei from the early Eocene of North America. The th...

One new genus and three new species of Lygistorrhinidae in early Eocene Cambay amber from India are described, which significantly increases our knowledge about this group in the Eocene. Lygistorrhina indica n. sp. is the oldest fossil known from this extant genus. Indorrhina sahnii n. gen. et sp. shows morphological similarities to each of the two extant genera Lygistorrhina and Asiorrhina. Pa...

The long-term isolation of South America during most of the Cenozoic produced a highly peculiar terrestrial vertebrate biota, with a wide array of mammal groups, among which caviomorph rodents and platyrrhine primates are Mid-Cenozoic immigrants. In the absence of indisputable pre-Oligocene South American rodents or primates, the mode, timing and biogeography of these extraordinary dispersals r...

For the majority of the Early Caenozoic, a remarkable expanse of humid, mesothermal to temperate forests spread across Northern Polar regions that now contain specialized plant and animal communities adapted to life in extreme environments. Little is known on the taxonomic diversity of Arctic floras during greenhouse periods of the Caenozoic. We show for the first time that plant richness in th...

Preservation of liverworts in amber, a fossilized tree resin, is often exquisite. Twenty-three fossil species of liverworts have been described to date from Eocene (35-50 Ma) Baltic amber. In addition, two inclusions have been assigned to the extant species Ptilidium pulcherrimum (Ptilidiales or Porellales). However, the presence of the boreal P. pulcherrimum in the subtropical or warm-temperat...

Sea surface and subsurface temperatures over large parts of the ocean during the Eocene epoch (55.5-33.7 Ma) exceeded modern values by several degrees, which must have affected a number of oceanic processes. Here, we focus on the effect of elevated water column temperatures on the efficiency of the biological pump, particularly in relation to carbon and nutrient cycling. We use stable isotope v...

Broken Ridge represents a fragment of the oceanic Kerguelen-Heard platform, constructed at high southern latitudes in the middle Cretaceous and rifted apart during the middle Eocene (43-45 Ma). The approximately 1400-m section of prerift sediments on Broken Ridge preserves a polarity sequence that spans the middle Eocene to Upper Cretaceous (Chrons Cl 8/C20 to C34), including a 500-m continuous...

We report the oldest fossil occurrence of freshwater potamolepid sponges (Demospongiae, Spongillina, Potamolepidae) to date, originating from middle Eocene lake sediments accumulated in the Giraffe kimberlite maar, northern Canada. Sponges are represented by strongyle spicules that are gemmuloscleres. These are described herein as belonging to a new species, Potamophloios canadensis. Because th...

A diverse Eocene charophyte flora from a section at Gánt (Vértes Hills), Transdanubian Central Range, north-western Hungary, provides significant new information building on previous studies based only sub-surface data published the mid-twentieth century. This newly acquired material facilitates taxonomic revision and emendation of species Raskyella peckii thereby defines anagenetic lineage thr...