Mawsoniidae are a fossil family of actinistian fish popularly known as coelacanths, which are found in continental and marine paleoenvironments. The taxon is considered monophyletic, including five valid genera (Axelrodichthys, Chinlea, Diplurus, Mawsonia and Parnaibaia) and 11 genera with some taxonomical controversy (Alcoveria, Changxingia, Garnbergia, Heptanema, Indocoelacanthus, Libys, Lual...

BACKGROUND The pre-Jurassic record of terrestrial wood borings is poorly resolved, despite body fossil evidence of insect diversification among xylophilic clades starting in the late Paleozoic. Detailed analysis of borings in petrified wood provides direct evidence of wood utilization by invertebrate animals, which typically comprises feeding behaviors. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We descr...

Iron ore occurrences are situated on the south-eastern slopes of the Medvednica Mountain. They occur as discontinous, decameters long and 2-3.5 m thick bedded, poorly mineralized (15-35 % Fe) lenses. A narrow, 6 km long, ore zone strikes NE-SW from Tisova Peć to Pustodol-Adolfovac. It is spatially and genetically bounded to the basic volcanogenic-sedimentary series (SEDEX-type), metamorphosed i...

Aetosauria is a clade of heavily armored, quadrupedal omnivorous to herbivorous archosaurs known from the Late Triassic across what was the supercontinent of Pangea. Their abundance in many deposits relative to the paucity of other Triassic herbivores indicates that they were key components of Late Triassic ecosystems. However, their evolutionary relationships remain contentious due, in large p...

Reef-like structures referred to as banks are produced by framework-building ahermatypic scleractinians in cool water at various depths, usually below those of hermatypic shallow-water reef corals. The distribution of Holocene banks is closely related to the ecological requirements of the ahermatypic corals. Fifteen major regions of bank development are known today in the Atlantic and Pacific a...

Cretaceous ichthyosaurs have typically been considered a small, homogeneous assemblage sharing a common Late Jurassic ancestor. Their low diversity and disparity have been interpreted as indicative of a decline leading to their Cenomanian extinction. We describe the first post-Triassic ichthyosaur from the Middle East, Malawania anachronus gen. et sp. nov. from the Early Cretaceous of Iraq, and...

It updates the biostratigraphic refinement in the Indian Mesozoics with focus on the Triassic in Spiti, Jurassic in Kachchh, and Cretaceous in Kachchh and Cauvery. As an example, the ammonoid stratigraphic zonation in Kachchh basin inclusive of the new Oxfordian zones, as also the origin of the basin are developed at length. Also are touched upon the salient pre-sequence Paleozoic features as b...

The end-Permian mass extinction, 251 million years (Myr) ago, was the most devastating ecological event of all time, and it was exacerbated by two earlier events at the beginning and end of the Guadalupian, 270 and 260 Myr ago. Ecosystems were destroyed worldwide, communities were restructured and organisms were left struggling to recover. Disaster taxa, such as Lystrosaurus, insinuated themsel...

Lower Triassic carbonate sedimentary rocks exhibit fabrics and facies indicative of reduced bioturbation and reduced abundance of skeletal animals and algae relative to their Permian counterparts. Widespread microbial mounds are one widely cited example. Micritic spheroids of probable microbial origin occur at a few horizons in the Spathian (uppermost Lower Triassic) Virgin Limestone Member of ...

Fossorialism is a beneficial adaptation for brooding, predator avoidance and protection from extreme climate. The abundance of fossilised burrow casts from the Early Triassic of southern Africa is viewed as a behavioural response by many tetrapods to the harsh conditions following the Permo-Triassic mass-extinction event. However, scarcity of vertebrate remains associated with these burrows lea...