This article describes the isolation and taxonomic study of a coryneform isolate of a new Gordonia species (G. jacobaea), strain MV-1, which accumulates several carotenoids, including the ketocarotenoid trans-canthaxanthin. Identification of this new isolate by morphobiochemical methods did not allow unambiguous taxon assignment, but sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene clearly pointed to the genus ...

BACKGROUND Baurusuchidae is a group of extinct Crocodyliformes with peculiar, dog-faced skulls, hypertrophied canines, and terrestrial, cursorial limb morphologies. Their importance for crocodyliform evolution and biogeography is widely recognized, and many new taxa have been recently described. In most phylogenetic analyses of Mesoeucrocodylia, the entire clade is represented only by Baurusuch...

Numerous fossil pipoid frogs recovered from Late Cretaceous deposits of a closed crater-lake of Late Cretaceous age in the Marydale District of South Africa are described and referred to a new genus and species of pipoid anuran. The fossils include larvae and adult frogs that are thought to have been killed en masse following breakdown of the thermal stratification or possibly by CO2 degassing ...

A new genus and species of eutherian mammal, Acristatherium yanensis gen. et sp. nov., is described from the Early Cretaceous Jehol biota, China. The new taxon is based on a partial skull that is preserved in three dimensions from the Lujiatun bed of the Yixian Formation and dated 123.2+/-1.0 Ma. Its right upper and lower dentitions are nearly complete and it has a dental formula 4.1.5.3/3.1.5....

BACKGROUND Bothremydidae is a clade of extinct pleurodiran turtles known from the Cretaceous to Paleogene of Africa, Europe, India, Madagascar, and North and South America. The group is most diverse during the Late Cretaceous to Paleogene of Africa. Little is known, however, about the early evolution of the group. METHODS We here figure and describe a fossil turtle from early Late Cretaceous ...

The larger benthic foraminifera Gyroconulina columellifera Schroeder & Darmoian, 1977 (type-locality: Maastrichtian Aqra Formation of Iraq) is described for the first time from two sections of the Maastrichtian Tarbur Formation of the Zagros Fold-Thrust-Belt, SW Iran. New details on its wall microstructure are provided. The microfacies is represented by bioclastic wacke-/pack-/grainstones with ...