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Fossil Friday Roundup: May 12, 2017

Featured Image:  Beibeilong sinensis. Image credit: Zhao Chuang. See Pu et al. (2017)

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Earliest signs of life on land preserved in ca. 3.5 Ga hot spring deposits (Nature Communications)
  • Flowering after disaster: Early Danian buckthorn (Rhamnaceae) flowers and leaves from Patagonia (PLOS ONE)
  • Tugenchromis pickfordi, gen. et sp. nov., from the upper Miocene—a stem-group cichlid of the ‘East African Radiation’ (Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology)
  • Patterns of divergence in fish species separated by the Isthmus of Panama (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
  • Contradicting habitat type-extinction risk relationships between living and fossil amphibians (RSOS)
  • A new ankylosaurine dinosaur from the Judith River Formation of Montana, USA, based on an exceptional skeleton with soft tissue preservation (RSOS)
  • A novel form of postcranial skeletal pneumaticity in a sauropod dinosaur: Implications for the paleobiology of Rebbachisauridae (APP)
  • Anatomy, taphonomy, and phylogenetic implications of a new specimen of Eolambia caroljonesa (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) from the Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah, USA (PLOS ONE)
  • A new lithostrotian titanosaur (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the Early Cretaceous of Transbaikalia, Russia (Russian Biological Communications)
  • Perinate and eggs of a giant caenagnathid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of central China (Nature Communications)
  • Earliest Mysticete from the Late Eocene of Peru Sheds New Light on the Origin of Baleen Whales (Current Biology)
  • Direct evidence of megamammal-carnivore interaction decoded from bone marks in historical fossil collections from the Pampean region (PeerJ)
  • Upper Pleistocene Mammal Assemblage from Su Concali Quarry (Samatzai, southern Sardinia, Italy) (Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigraphia)
  • Cranial and dental material of Gomphotherium wimani (Gomphotheriidae, Proboscidea) from the Middle Miocene of the Linxia Basin, northwestern China (IVPP)
  • New fossil remains of Homo naledi from the Lesedi Chamber, South Africa (eLife)
  • Australian shelf sediments reveal shifts in Miocene Southern Hemisphere westerlies (Science Advances)
  • First record of Notiomastodon platensis (Mammalia, Probosciedea) from Bolivia (Rev Bras Paleontol)
  • Roedores Sigmodontíneos (Mammalia, Rodentia, Cricetidae) Holocênicos do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (Rev Bras Paleontol)
  • Revisión del Perezoso Terrestre Nothropus (Mammalia, Xenarthra, Tardigrada) del Pleistoceno de Argentina y Bolivia (Rev Bras Paleontol)
  • El Registro Más Antiguo de Chasicotatus ameghinoi Scillatoyané, 197 (Xenarthra, Dasypodidae) en el Tortoniano Medio de la Quebrada de Amaicha (Tucumán, Argentina): Consideraciones Bioestratigráficas (Rev Bras Paleontol)
  • Quaternary Mammals from Central Brazil (Serra da Bodoquena, Matt Grosso do Sul) and comments on paleobiogegraphy and paleoenvironments (Rev Bras Paleontol)
  • Antler remains (Cervidae, Artiodactyla, Mammalia) from a new locality in the Pinjor Formation, Pakistan (Rev Bras Paleontol)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources:

  • Diversity in Paleontology Workshop GoFundMe (Link)
  • PLOS Early Career Travel Award Program, Due May 31 (Link)
  • Support the Excavation of the KU T.rex in Montana (Link)

New and Views:

Animals and Anatomy:

Museums, Methods, and Musings:

  • 3 Reasons Homo naledi is Headline Worthy (that have nothing to do with controversy) (Paige Fossil History)
  • What exactly is the problem with Elsevier and co? (SV-POW)
  • “But Elsevier bought Mendeley and SSRN, and they’re OK, aren’t they?” (SV-POW)
  • From the War of Nature (Extinct)
  • Episode 8 – Conservation Paleontology (Common Descent)
  • PaleorXiv: Now open for submissions (Green Tea and Velociraptors)

Arts, Books, Culture, and Fun:


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