The Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary marks a critical event in mammalian evolution. Using a database of 4769 mammalian specimens from the Hell Creek and lower Fort Union formations of Garfi eld County, northeastern Montana, I quantifi ed temporal patterns of diversity and community structure to evaluate faunal dynamics during the last ~1.9 m.y. of the Cretaceous, the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinctio...

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...

From well preserved leaf damage of the mid-Cretaceous Dakota Flora (97 million years ago), three distinctive, insect-mediated feeding traces have been identified and assigned to two extant genera and one subfamily. These taxa are the leaf miners Stigmella and Ectoedemia of the Nepticulidae and Phyllocnistinae of the Gracillariidae. These fossils indicate that within 25 million years of early an...

Advanced titanosaurian sauropods, such as nemegtosaurids and saltasaurids, were diverse and one of the most important groups of herbivores in the terrestrial biotas of the Late Cretaceous. However, little is known about their rise and diversification prior to the Late Cretaceous. Furthermore, the evolution of their highly-modified skull anatomy has been largely hindered by the scarcity of well-...

Growth ring analysis on silicified coniferous woods from the Missão Velha Formation (Araripe Basin - Brazil) has yielded important information about periodicity of wood production during the Early Cretaceous in the equatorial belt. Despite warm temperatures, dendrological data indicate that the climate was characterized by cyclical alternation of dry and rainy periods influenced by cyclical pre...

Analyses of leaf megafossil and dispersed leaf cuticle assemblages indicate that major ecologic disruption and high rates of extinction occurred in plant communities at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary in the Raton Basin. In diversity increase, the early Paleocene vegetational sequence mimics normal short-term ecologic succession, but on a far longer time scale. No difference can be detected be...

Derived features of a new boreosphenidan mammal from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of China suggest that it has a closer relationship to metatherians (including extant marsupials) than to eutherians (including extant placentals). This fossil dates to 125 million years ago and extends the record of marsupial relatives with skeletal remains by 50 million years. It also has many foot struc...

Apatite fission-track analysis of samples covering a 4.2-kilometer vertical section from the western flank of Vinson Massif, Antarctica's highest mountain, indicates that the Ellsworth Mountains were uplifted by 4 kilometers or more during the Early Cretaceous following the initial separation of East and West Gondwana and accompanying the opening of the Weddell Sea. Relief of at least 1.8 kilom...

A new stem bythinine in Cretaceous Burmese amber and early evolution of specialized predatory behaviour in pselaphine rove beetles (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) Zi-Wei Yin, Joseph Parker, Chen-Yang Cai, Di-Ying Huang & Li-Zhen Li To cite this article: Zi-Wei Yin, Joseph Parker, Chen-Yang Cai, Di-Ying Huang & Li-Zhen Li (2017): A new stem bythinine in Cretaceous Burmese amber and early evolution o...