The importance of trophic ecology in adaptation and evolution is well known, yet direct evidence that feeding controls microevolution over extended evolutionary time scales, available only from the fossil record, is conspicuously lacking. Through quantitative analysis of tooth microwear, we show that rapid evolutionary change in Miocene stickleback was associated with shifts in feeding, providi...

The fossil record and systematics of murid rodents, reservoirs of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in the Palaearctic, Oriental, African, Nearctic and Neotropical, strongly support a Palaearctic origin of Leishmania. The fossil record and systematics of phlebotomine sand flies reinforce this idea. Interpretations of molecular data that place the origin of Leishmania in the Neotropical are incon...

An exceptionally preserved new ostracod crustacean from the Silurian of Herefordshire, England, preserves eggs and possible juveniles within its carapace, providing an unequivocal and unique view of parental brood care in the invertebrate fossil record. The female fossil is assigned to a new family and superfamily of myodocopids based on its soft-part anatomy. It demonstrates a remarkably conse...

Based on a well-preserved specimen from Upper Eocene Baltic amber (Kaliningrad region, Russia), Microbregma waldwico sp. nov., the second fossil species of this genus, is described. The new species is similar to the extant Holarctic M. emarginatum (Duftschmid), 1825, and fossil M. sucinoemarginatum (Kuśka), 1992, but differs in its shorter abdominal ventrite 1 (about 0.43 length of ventrite 2) ...

Despite the protracted history of life on earth spanning well over 3.8 Ga, fossil record of the Precambrian (>543 Ma) largely documents only microscopic life. The mostly simple Precambrian life forms were followed by a sudden explosive radiation of multicellular animals at the turn of the Cambrian period (543-490 Ma) between 530 and 520 Ma ago, when almost two-thirds of the animal phyla make th...

The new tribe Patollini trib. n. of the Tropiduchidae with the extinct genus Patollo gen. n., comprising two species Patollo natangorum sp. n. and P. aestiorum sp. n. from Eocene Baltic amber is described. Taxonomic placement of some fossil taxa ascribed to Tropiduchidae is discussed. The classification of Tropiduchidae is discussed, as well as phylogenetic position and fossil record of Tropidu...

The first fossil that was described in Ptychopteridae, Ptychoptera deletaNovák, 1877 from the classical Early Miocene locality Mokřina (Krottensee) in western Bohemia is re-examined. The re-description of the holotype including a new line drawing and remarks summarizing the scarce fossil record of this group is provided.

A new fossil species of salticid spider (Araneae: Salticidae) is described based on an amber-embedded specimen. The specimen was collected from lignite-sandstone early-mid Miocene sediments near the town of Totolapa in Chiapas, southwestern Mexico. The diagnosis and description is supported by key characters that best match the genus Maevia Koch, 1846. Thus, this new fossil species has been nam...

—A new species of aphroditiform polychaete, Protopholoe colombiana, is described from the Coniacian of Colombia, South America, increasing the number of species of this genus known from the fossil record to two. This is the first occurrence of fossil soft-bodied polychaetes in the Tropical Americas, and indicates that aphroditiforms were spread worldwide during the Mesozoic.

Background and Aims Radially symmetrical, five-winged fossil fruits from the highly diverse early Eocene Laguna del Hunco flora of Chubut Province, Patagonia, Argentina, are named, described and illustrated. The main goals are to assess the affinities of the fossils and to place them in an evolutionary, palaeoecological and biogeographic context. Methods Specimens of fossil fruits were collec...