After asking participants to propose analogies favoring a zerodeficit policy, Blanchette and Dunbar (2000) obtained a high proportion of base analogs lacking superficial similarities with the target, thus questioning the validity of a long experimental tradition demonstrating their centrality on retrieval. Through the use of culturally shared bases, we overcame two limitations in their study th...

We present here the first record of plant-insect interactions from an ephemeral volcanic island that was placed 150 km away nearest continental mass. The formed and destroyed during Aalenian (Middle Jurassic) in a shallow sea southwestern Tethyan realm corresponding today to place located eastern Spain. These were mainly documented leaves Cycadophytes (comprising both Cycads Bennettitales), the...

A new genus and species, Mirimordella gracilicruralis gen. et sp. nov., in the subfamily Praemordellinae of Mordellidae, is described and illustrated based on a nearly complete fossil specimen. It is from the Yixian Formation of western Liaoning Province, NE China. The diagnosis of the subfamily Praemordellinae is emended based on this new species. Characters such as simple and linear maxillary...

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...

Large-bodied suspension feeders (planktivores), which include the most massive animals to have ever lived, are conspicuously absent from Mesozoic marine environments. The only clear representatives of this trophic guild in the Mesozoic have been an enigmatic and apparently short-lived Jurassic group of extinct pachycormid fishes. Here, we report several new examples of these giant bony fishes f...

F ossil insects from the Early Jurassic (Hettan-gian–Sinemurian) of the eastern United States comprise a small fauna that contains two elytra-based genera of beetles, abundant larvae and an adult specimen that may belong to adephagan beetles, other larvae of unknown affinities, a blattoid, and several indeterminate specimens composed of isolated segments and isolated appendages. Beetle elytra i...