Members of the family Laccophyllidae are small, solitary rugose corals with stratigraphic ranges from Silurian to Permian. Among the laccophyllids, axial ends of major septa are united in an aulos and dissepiments may be absent or present. Minor septa can be contratingent and sometimes are small or in some genera are absent. Septa and aulos may be thick or thin. In this study, Famennian rugose...

The fossils assigned to the tetrapod stem group document the evolution of terrestrial vertebrates from lobe-finned fishes. During the past 15 years the phylogenetic structure of this stem group has remained remarkably stable, even when accommodating major new discoveries such as the elpistostegid Tiktaalik. Here we present a large tetrapodomorph fish from the Late Devonian of China that disrupt...

New megafossil and microfossil data indicate four episodes in the diversification of Silurian-Early Carboniferous land plants of South China, a relatively continuous regional record. Plant diversity increased throughout, but the rising curve was punctuated by three major falls. There were peaks of origination in the Ludlow-Pragian, Givetian, late Famennian and Visean and peaks of extinction in ...