A new type of turtle egg fossil was established: Emydoolithus laiyangensis oogen. et oosp. nov.. Based on its elliptical morphological shape, rigid eggshells, and eggshell characteristics, it is different from other types of round chelonian egg fossils. It is the second chelonian egg fossil found in Cretaceous in China. This discovery shows the Laiyang ecosystem in Late Cretaceous is more diver...

The Mahajanga Basin Project, initiated in 1993 and centered in Upper Cretaceous strata of northwestern Madagascar, has resulted in the discovery of some of the most complete, well-preserved, and significant specimens of Late Cretaceous vertebrate animals from the Southern Hemisphere and indeed the world. Among the most important finds are various specimens of crocodyliforms, non-avian dinosaurs...

Background. The Cretaceous of southern Europe was characterized by an archipelago setting with faunas of mixed composition of endemic, Laurasian and Gondwanan elements. However, little is known about the relative timing of these faunal influences. The Lower Cretaceous of East-Central Europe holds a great promise for understanding the biogeographic history of Cretaceous European biotas because o...

a new species of cassiduloid echinoids, pygaulus baghinensis is reported for the first time from aptian sediments of baghin area, west of kerman, iran. the diagnostic features of the species are centrally positioned of the apical disc and approximately low profile of the test. variation in gonopore size in different individuals allows to conclude that p. baghinensis is sexually dimorphic. speci...

abderaz formation is one of the upper cretaceous formations in the kopet-dagh sedimentary basin. a stratigraphic section from the mentioned formation is selected for detailed systematic description with regard to echinoids. numerous well preserved representatives of the families mircrasteridae wright, 1857 and echinocorythidae lambert, 1920 are described from the ghaleh-zoo stratigraphic sectio...

two new species of an arbacioid echinoid, genus goniopygus, are reported for the first time from aptiansediments of baghin area, kerman, iran. the main features of the species lie in apical disc and peristomediameter. in goniopygus triangularis sp. nov., the periperoct is triangular in shape with three small, sunkentubercles, located alternatively adjacent to the periperoct, while goniopygus an...

a fauna of 16 species and genera of marine ostracoda is described and illustrated for the first timefrom the mid-cretaceous of the badamouyeh mountain in kerman province. the ostracod assemblagesuggests a favorable condition during the deposition of the strata. the ostracods can also be used for thecorrelation of cenomanian age formations in many places in the middle east

In a perspectives article, Bromham et al.1 raise some important concerns about the use of both molecular and paleontological data in assessing the timing of diversification of extant mammalian orders. In Box 1, they describe well the need to differentiate crown (or more generally, nodebased) taxa from stem-based taxa. Unfortunately, their Fig. 2 is not clearly explained and thus confuses these ...