Ricinulei are among the most obscure and cryptic arachnid orders, constituting a micro-diverse group with extreme endemism. The 76 extant species described to date are grouped in three genera: Ricinoides, from tropical Western and Central Africa, and the two Neotropical genera Cryptocellus and Pseudocellus. Until now, a single molecular phylogeny of Ricinulei has been published, recovering the ...

The new genus and species, Gondwanascorpio emzantsiensis, are described in Scorpiones incertae se dis on the basis of fragments from the Famennian (Late Devonian) Waterloo Farm locality near Grahams town, Eastern Cape, South Africa. This finding adds to the sparse record of Late Devonian scorpion taxa and provides the first evidence of Palaeozoic scorpions from Gondwana. Material includes a com...

The behavior of the solid Earth system is often overlooked when the causes of major Neoproteozoic (1000–542 Ma) climate and biosphere events are discussed although ∼20% of the present continental crust formed or was remobilized during this time. Processes responsible for forming and deforming the continental crust during Neoproterozoic time were similar to those of the modern Earth and took pla...

The sunflower alliance of families comprises nearly 10% of all flowering plant species and includes the largest of all plant families, the sunflower family Asteraceae, which has 23,000 species, and the bellflower family Campanulaceae. Both are worldwide in distribution, but the majority of their species occur in the northern hemisphere. Recently it has been shown that a number of small, woody f...

Multituberculates (Allotheria) are generally regarded as the evolutionarily most successful and longestlived (Middle Jurassic to late Eocene) clade of Mesozoic and early Paleogene mammals. Despite this “reputation” and the fact that the group is particularly well represented in both taxonomic diversity and relative abundance on Laurasian landmasses during the Cretaceous and Paleocene, multitube...

Abstract A Paleozoic arc that formed by southward subduction of the Rheic oceanic plate beneath northern Gondwana has long been inferred, but its history and geochemical signatures remain poorly understood. New U-Pb ages, juvenile εHf signatures, trace-element composition data young zircons from tuffs at two southern Laurentia sites indicate their derivation a continental was active ca. 328 to ...