In the context of molecularly-dated phylogenies, inferences informed by ancestral habitat reconstruction can yield valuable insights into the origins of biomes, palaeoenvironments and landforms. In this paper, we use dated phylogenies of 12 plant clades from the Cape Floristic Region (CFR) in southern Africa to test hypotheses of Neogene climatic and geomorphic evolution. Our combined dataset f...

A new species of Sphaerodactylus (Squamata: Gekkota: Sphaerodactylidae) is described from an amber inclusion from the late Early Miocene or early Middle Miocene (15 to 20 million years ago) of the Dominican Republic. Unlike earlier amber-embedded specimens assigned to this genus, the new specimen is largely skeletal, with some integument remaining. A combination of 258 (of 674) osteological and...

The Miocene mega-wetland of western Amazonia holds a diverse, largely endemic ostracod fauna. Among them, especially the genus Cyprideis experienced a remarkable radiation. Micropalaeontologic investigations of a 400 m long sediment core (~62 km SW Benjamin Constant, Amazonia, Brazil) permitted a taxonomic revision of about two-thirds of hitherto described Cyprideis species. We evaluate the dia...

Ardipithecus fossils found in late Miocene and early Pliocene deposits in the Afar region of Ethiopia, along with Sahelanthropus tchadensis from Chad and Orrorin tugenensis from Kenya, are among the earliest known human ancestors and are considered to be the predecessors to the subsequent australopithecines (Australopithecus anamensis and Australopithecus afarensis). Current paleoenvironmental ...

A new genus and species of platyrrhine primate, Nuciruptor rubricae, are added to the increasingly diverse primate fauna from the middle Miocene of La Venta, Columbia. This species displays a number of dental and gnathic features indicating that it is related to living and extinct Pitheciinae (extant Callicebus, Pithecia, Chiropotes, Cacajao, and the Colombian middle Miocene Cebupithecia sarmie...

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...

Many odontocete groups have developed enlarged facial crests, although these crests differ in topography, composition and function. The most elaborate crests occur in the South Asian river dolphin (Platanista gangetica), in which they rise dorsally as delicate, pneumatized wings anterior of the facial bones. Their position wrapping around the melon suggests their involvement in sound propagatio...

New records of the Oligo-Miocene mekosuchine crocodylian, Baru, from Queensland and the Northern Territory are described. Baru wickeni and Baru darrowi are accepted as valid species in the genus and their diagnoses are revised. Both species are present in Queensland and the Northern Territory but are restricted in time, with B. wickeni known from the late Oligocene and B. darrowi from the middl...

· Despite substantial investigations into Oryza phylogeny and evolution, reliable estimates of the divergence times and ancestral effective population sizes of major lineages in Oryza are challenging. · We sampled sequences of 106 single-copy nuclear genes from all six diploid genomes of Oryza to investigate the divergence times through extensive relaxed molecular clock analyses and estimated t...