A new species of the erythrosuchid archosauriform reptile Garjainia Ochev, 1958 is described on the basis of disarticulated but abundant and well-preserved cranial and postcranial material from the late Early Triassic (late Olenekian) Subzone A of the Cynognathus Assemblage Zone of the Burgersdorp Formation (Beaufort Group) of the Karoo Basin of South Africa. The new species, G. madiba, differs...

The Great Bank of Guizhou (GBG) is an isolated Late Permian to Late Triassic carbonate platform in the Nanpanjiang Basin of Guizhou Province, southwest China. A faulted syncline exposes a cross section of the platform margin, including a well-preserved Anisian (earliest Middle Triassic) reef complex approximately 1 km wide and 800 meters thick. Geochronologic constraints from associated basin-m...

The timing and nature of biotic recovery from the devastating end-Permian mass extinction (252 Ma) are much debated. New studies in South China suggest that complex marine ecosystems did not become re-established until the middle-late Anisian (Middle Triassic), much later than had been proposed by some. The recently discovered exceptionally preserved Luoping biota from the Anisian Stage of the ...

Evidence from sedimentation rates and stratigraphic ranges of palynomorph species indicate that van Veen is incorrect in inferring a condensed section at the Triassic/Jurassic (TR / J ) boundary in the Newark Supergroup. Van Veen bases his argument entirely on the ranges of palynomorph species in western Europe, but correlation of the European sections is equivocal, and the range data employed ...

Adaptive radiations are central to macroevolutionary theory. Whether triggered by acquisition of new traits or ecological opportunities arising from mass extinctions, it is debated whether adaptive radiations are marked by initial expansion of taxic diversity or of morphological disparity (the range of anatomical form). If a group rediversifies following a mass extinction, it is said to have pa...

The ascent of dinosaurs in the Triassic is an exemplary evolutionary radiation, but the earliest phase of dinosaur history remains poorly understood. Body fossils of close dinosaur relatives are rare, but indicate that the dinosaur stem lineage (Dinosauromorpha) originated by the latest Anisian (ca 242-244 Ma). Here, we report footprints from the Early-Middle Triassic of Poland, stratigraphical...

Species of the extinct family Dysmorphoptilidae with distinctly punctate and emarginate tegmina are one of the most characteristic elements of the hemipteran fauna of the three Queensland Triassic fossil insect-bearing formations-the Middle Triassic (Anisian) Gayndah Formation at Gayndah, the Late Triassic (Norian) Mount Crosby Formation at Mount Crosby, and the Late Triassic (Norian) Blackston...

A magnetic polarity stratigraphy is established for a continuously cored 360 m thick section of the entire cyclical lacustrine sequence and part of the sandy fluvial and eolian basal sequence of the Late Triassic Blomidon Formation in the Fundy basin in Nova Scotia (Canada). In conjunction with published results for the Newark and Dan River basins, the Fundy basin record allows us to precisely ...

The biotic recovery from Earth's most severe extinction event at the Permian-Triassic boundary largely reestablished the preextinction structure of marine trophic networks, with marine reptiles assuming the predator roles. However, the highest trophic level of today's marine ecosystems, i.e., macropredatory tetrapods that forage on prey of similar size to their own, was thus far lacking in the ...

Flying fishes are extraordinary aquatic vertebrates capable of gliding great distances over water by exploiting their enlarged pectoral fins and asymmetrical caudal fin. Some 50 species of extant flying fishes are classified in the Exocoetidae (Neopterygii: Teleostei), which have a fossil record no older than the Eocene. The Thoracopteridae is the only pre-Cenozoic group of non-teleosts that sh...