BACKGROUND The early history of the Lepidoptera is poorly known, a feature attributable to an inadequate preservational potential and an exceptionally low occurrence of moth fossils in relevant mid-Mesozoic deposits. In this study, we examine a particularly rich assemblage of morphologically basal moths that contribute significantly toward the understanding of early lepidopteran biodiversity. ...

Sauropodomorph dinosaurs originated in the Southern Hemisphere in the Middle or Late Triassic and are commonly portrayed as spreading rapidly to all corners of Pangaea as part of a uniform Late Triassic to Early Jurassic cosmopolitan dinosaur fauna. Under this model, dispersal allegedly inhibited dinosaurian diversification, while vicariance and local extinction enhanced it. However, apomorphy-...

Although the group played an important role in the evolution of Late Mesozoic terrestrial ecosystems, the early evolutionary history of the ornithischian dinosaurs remains poorly understood. Here, we report on a new primitive ornithischian, Eocursor parvus gen. et sp. nov. from the Late Triassic (?Norian) Lower Elliot Formation of South Africa. Eocursor is known from a single specimen comprisin...

Plesiosaurs were the longest-surviving group of secondarily marine tetrapods, comparable in diversity to today's cetaceans. During their long evolutionary history, which spanned the Jurassic and the Cretaceous (201 to 66 Ma), plesiosaurs repeatedly evolved long- and short-necked body plans [1, 2]. Despite this postcranial plasticity, short-necked plesiosaur clades have traditionally been regard...

Cycle stratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic analyses of a -5000-m-thick composite section obtained by scientific oring in the Newark rift basin of eastern North America provide a high-resolution astronomically calibrated geomagnetic polarity timescale (GPTS) spanning over 30 m.y. of the Late Triassic and earliest Jurassic. Only normal polarity is found in -1000 m of interbedded volcanics and c...

SYNOPSIS Suuwassea emilieae is a recently described dinosaur taxon discovered in the Upper JurassicMorrisonFormationof thewesternUnitedStatesand theonlynon-diplodocidflagellicaudatan (Dinosauria: Sauropoda) known fromNorth America. It retains sauropod symplesiomorphies that are unexpected in a Late Jurassic taxon and thus sheds light on the evolutionary origins of the Flagellicaudata. Despite b...

The Talas Fergana/Karatau Fault, is a major tectonic boundary separating the Kazakh-Turan domain to west from Tian Shan east. During Jurassic, movements along fault led opening of several basins. Still, Mesozoic kinematics and geodynamic mechanism that these basins are largely unconstrained. Located at its southwestern termination, Yarkand-Fergana Basin certainly best exposed however still poor...