We examined the phylogenetic relationships of 16 northern species of the aplocheiloid genus Rivulus inhabiting the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. A total of 714 base pairs per taxon were sequenced from two segments of the mitochondrial genome, 12S rRNA and cytochrome b. Both parsimony and neighbor-joining analyses suggest an ancient vicariant origin of the Greater Antillean taxa...

Amphibia comprises over 7000 extant species distributed in almost every ecosystem on every continent except Antarctica. Most species also show high specificity for particular habitats, biomes, or climatic niches, seemingly rendering long-distance dispersal unlikely. Indeed, many lineages still seem to show the signature of their Pangaean origin, approximately 300 Ma later. To date, no study has...

The Eocene-Oligocene Boundary (~34 million years ago) marks one of the largest extinctions of marine invertebrates in the world oceans and of mammalian fauna in Europe and Asia in the Cenozoic era. A shift to a cooler climate across this boundary has been suggested as the cause of this extinction in the marine environment, but there is no manifold evidence for a synchronous turnover of flora, f...

Climate changes within Cenozoic extreme climate events such as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and the First Oligocene Glacial provide good opportunities to estimate the global climate trends in our present and future life. However, quantitative paleotemperatures data for Cenozoic climatic reconstruction are still lacking, hindering a better understanding of the past and future climate con...

Abstract Karl Mayer (later Mayer-Eymar, 1826–1906) was a stratigrapher and palaeontologist who assembled during his long career collection of Cenozoic (then “Tertiary”) mollusks that numbers more than 500′000 specimens. He mostly collected them himself at various localities in Europe Egypt. In 175 publications he described 1100 new bivalve gastropod species, the types which are paramount import...

The record of extinct African metatherians (Mammalia, Theria) is scanty, restricted in time (Eocene–Miocene), and its taxonomy still subject debate. A review all metatherians, or alleged known up to now, led us the recognition only three taxa referable this group: (1)  Kasserinotherium tunisiense  (Peradectoidea?), from early Eocene Tunisia; (2)  Peratherium africanum &nbsp...

The present paper reviews the geological development of the Faroes part of the NE Atlantic Margin in the Cenozoic Era. The Faroes area is located west of the post-Caledonian rift basin system formed in the Devonian after the collapse of the Caledonian mountains. Tectonic movements and plate reorganizations during several phases have strongly influenced sedimentation and erosion along the Caledo...