Morphological similarities indicate that Palaeozoic problematic tubeworms, e.g. tentaculitids, cornulitids, microconchids, trypanoporids, Anticalyptraea, and Tymbochoos, form a monophyletic group. This group may also include hederelloids. Members of this group share affinities with lophophorates and their evolution could have partly been driven by predation. The extinction of Palaeozoic tubewor...

A small accumulation of bones from the Norian (Upper Triassic) of the Seazza Brook Valley (Carnic Prealps, Northern Italy) was originally (1989) identified as a gastric pellet made of pterosaur skeletal elements. The specimen has been reported in literature as one of the very few cases of gastric ejecta containing pterosaur bones since then. However, the detailed analysis of the bones preserved...

Substantial advances by numerous researchers over the past 20 years have made it possible to develop a composite biochronological scheme for the Triassic based on the bivalves Claraia, Peribositria, Enteropleura, Daonella, Halobia, Eomonotis and Monotis. These bivalves exhibit temporal durations nearly equal to ammonoids and conodonts. Widely distributed across the Tethys, Panthalassa and Borea...

Two new species of the genus Sinosmylites Hong are described from the Middle Jurassic locality at Daohugou (Inner Mongolia, China): Sinosmylites fumosussp. n. and Sinosmylites rasnitsynisp. n. This is the oldest known occurrence of the family Berothidae. The berothid affinity of this genus is confirmed by examination of the hind wing venation characteristic of the family. The Late Triassic fami...

Therocephalians were a speciose clade of nonmammalian therapsids whose ecological diversity and survivorship of the end-Permian mass extinction offer the potential to investigate the evolution of growth patterns across the clade and their underlying influences on post-extinction body size reductions, or 'Lilliput effects'. We present a phylogenetic survey of limb bone histology and growth patte...

Quantitative subsidence analysis of 26 wells in the Lusitanian basin provides new constraints on the western Iberian Mesozoic passive margin development. Backstripped tectonic subsidence curves show a three-fold subdivision of vertical motions from Late Triassic onward. Continental rifting was initiated during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. From Middle Jurassic onward a distinct differen...

The Mesozoic lacustrine revolution (MLR) represents a major evolutionary event in the continental realm (Cohen 2003 ). The decline in taxic diversity at the family level in lacustrine environments that took place during the late Paleozoic–Middle Triassic was reversed later in the Mesozoic, with diversifi cation seeming to have continued to the Quaternary, although potential biases may have affe...

The South African species Euparkeria capensis is of great importance for understanding the early radiation of archosauromorphs (including archosaurs) following the Permo-Triassic mass extinction, as most phylogenetic analyses place it as the sister taxon to crown group Archosauria within the clade Archosauriformes. Although a number of species from Lower-Middle Triassic deposits worldwide have ...

Different interpretations on the timing of early diversification and radiation of modern sharks and batoids (Neoselachii) in the Earth's history exist and are related to discrepancies in taxonomic and phylogenetic interpretations favouring a Late Triassic or earliest Jurassic diversification and subsequent radiation event, respectively. Sampling standardization based on pooled taxonomic occurre...

As one of the earliest-known mammaliaforms, Haramiyavia clemmenseni from the Rhaetic (Late Triassic) of East Greenland has held an important place in understanding the timing of the earliest radiation of the group. Reanalysis of the type specimen using high-resolution computed tomography (CT) has revealed new details, such as the presence of the dentary condyle of the mammalian jaw hinge and th...