Two new species, Paramesosciophilodesbellus sp. n. and Paramesosciophilodesrarissima sp. n., from the Jiulongshan Formation at Daohugou Village, Inner Mongolia, China, are described in the extinct family Mesosciophilidae. Altogether seven genera with 21 species of mesosciophilids have been described from the Jurassic of Siberia and Kazakhstan, the Lower Cretaceous of Transbaikalia, and the Midd...

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations appear to have been considerably higher than modern levels during much of the Phanerozoic and it has hence been proposed that surface temperatures were also higher. Some studies have, however, suggested that Earth's temperature (estimated from the isotopic composition of fossil shells) may have been independent of variations in atmospheric CO2 (e.g. in the Jurassi...

Jurassic African pterosaur remains are exceptionally rare and only known from the Tendaguru deposits, Upper Jurassic, Tanzania. Here we describe two right humeri of Tendaguru pterosaurs from the Humboldt University of Berlin: specimens MB.R. 2828 (cast MN 6661-V) and MB.R. 2833 (cast MN 6666-V). MB.R. 2828 consists of a three-dimensionally preserved proximal portion. The combination of the morp...

The supercontinent Pangea dominated our planet from the Permian into the Jurassic. Paleomagnetic reconstructions have been used to estimate the latitudinal position of Pangea during this 100-million-year period. Atmospheric circulation, recorded by eolian sandstones in the southwestern United States, shows a broad sweep of northeasterly winds over their northernmost extent, curving to become no...

Macaronesia, which includes five mid-Atlantic archipelagos (Azores, Madeira, Selvagems, Canaries, and Cape Verdes), has been traditionally recognized as a distinct biogeographic unit whose circumscription has been intimately associated with the hypothesis that the flora is a relict of a formerly broadly distributed subtropical Tertiary flora. The concept of Macaronesia is revisited here using p...

Microconchids are an extinct group of Spirorbis-like tentaculitoid tubeworms that dwelled in a variety of aquatic environments, ranging from normal marine, through brackish and hypersaline, to freshwater. An analysis of published microconchid occurrences focusing on their ecology and palaeoenvironmental distribution through geological time is conducted in order to establish the timing of microc...

Nonmarine fluvial, eolian and lacustrine strata of the Chinle and Glen Canyon groups in northeastern Arizona and adjacent areas preserve tetrapod body fossils and footprints that are one of the world’s most extensive tetrapod fossil records across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. We organize these tetrapod fossils into five, time-successive biostratigraphic assemblages (in ascending order, Owl R...

Two new docodontans, Simpsonodon sibiricus sp. nov. and Hutegotherium yaomingi gen. et sp. nov., and a new specimen of Itatodon tatarinovi Lopatin et Averianov, 2005 are described from the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian) Itat Formation of Krasnoyarsk Territory in West Siberia, Russia. A new phylogenetic analysis, incorporating 37 dental and mandibular characters and 18 docodontan and outgroup taxa ...

It updates the biostratigraphic refinement in the Indian Mesozoics with focus on the Triassic in Spiti, Jurassic in Kachchh, and Cretaceous in Kachchh and Cauvery. As an example, the ammonoid stratigraphic zonation in Kachchh basin inclusive of the new Oxfordian zones, as also the origin of the basin are developed at length. Also are touched upon the salient pre-sequence Paleozoic features as b...