Environmental perturbations during mass extinctions were likely manifested differently in epicontinental seas than in open-ocean-facing habitats of comparable depth. Here, we present a dissection of origination and extinction in epicontinental seas versus open-ocean-facing coastal regions in the Permian through Cretaceous periods, an interval through which both settings are well represented in ...

The head and mouthpart structures of 11 species of Eurasian scorpionflies represent three extinct and closely related families during a 62-million-year interval from the late Middle Jurassic to the late Early Cretaceous. These taxa had elongate, siphonate (tubular) proboscides and fed on ovular secretions of extinct gymnosperms. Five potential ovulate host-plant taxa co-occur with these insects...

Ecological relationships among fossil vertebrate groups are interpreted based on evidence of modification features and paleopathologies on fossil bones. Here we describe an ichnological assemblage composed of trace fossils on reptile bones, mainly sphenodontids, crocodyliforms and maniraptoran theropods. They all come from La Buitrera, an early Late Cretaceous locality in the Candeleros Formati...

The fossil record of the turtle clade Baenidae ranges from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian–Albian) to the Eocene. The group is present throughout North America during the Early Cretaceous, but is restricted to the western portions of the continents in the Late Cretaceous and Paleogene. No credible remains of the clade have been reported outside of North America to date. Baenids were warmadapted fr...

Ecological studies suggest that rare taxa are more likely to go extinct than abundant ones, but the influence of abundance on survivorship in the fossil record has received little attention. An analysis of Late Maastrichtian bivalve subgenera from the North American Coastal Plain found no evidence that survivorship is tied to abundance across the end-Cretaceous mass extinction (65 million years...

Three-dimensional specimens of the volant fossil bird Gansus yumenensis from the Early Cretaceous Xiagou Formation of northwestern China demonstrate that this taxon possesses advanced anatomical features previously known only in Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic ornithuran birds. Phylogenetic analysis recovers Gansus within the Ornithurae, making it the oldest known member of the clade. The Xiagou F...

Diatoms are one of the most important eukaryotic primary producers in lower ecosystem; understanding their evolutionary history is therefore also important. Throughout Cenozoic hydrosphere, diatoms have flourished. However, as a result progressive diagenesis and dissolution opaline silica that forms frustules, early evolution during Cretaceous unclear, so fossil record incomplete. Largely becau...

Here, we describe the first pterosaur remains from Angola, an assemblage of fourteen bones Lower Maastrichtian marine deposits Bentiaba, Namibe Province. One new species is introduced, Epapatelo otyikokolo, gen. et sp. nov., which comprises articulated partial left humerus and ulna as well radius (from a second individual). Phylogenetic analysis confirms non-nyctosaurid pteranodontian attributi...