Proardea? deschutteri n. sp.Â
Gerald Mayr, Vanesa L. De Pietri, R. Paul Scofield & Thierry Smith (2018)Â
A fossil heron from the early Oligocene of Belgium â the earliest temporally wellâconstrained record of the Ardeidae.Â
Ibis (advance online publication)Â
doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ibi.12600
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ibi.12600
We describe the earliest temporally wellâconstrained fossil that can be assigned to the Ardeidae (herons), from the lowermost Oligocene (32.0â33.0 million years ago) of Belgium. The specimen, a partial tarsometatarsus, belongs to a small species and is described as Proardea? deschutteri n. sp.. It exhibits the characteristic tarsometatarsus morphology found in extant heron species, but a confident assignment to one of the ardeid subclades is not possible and even the assignment of the new fossil species to the crown group (the clade including the extant species) cannot be established. The fossil indicates a divergence of herons from their sisterâtaxon by at least the earliest Oligocene, and current paleontological data suggest that herons arrived in Europe shortly after a major faunal turnover at the Eocene/Oligocene Boundary. We consider that dispersal is the likely reason for the sudden appearance of herons in the earliest Oligocene of Europe, but it is uncertain from where exactly this took place, with Asia and Africa being among the candidate areas.
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J. Francis Thackeray (2018)
Do specimens attributed to Lystrosaurus murrayi and L. declivis (Triassic Therapsida) represent one species?
South African Journal of Science 114 (3/4): 1-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2018/a0258
https://www.sajs.co.za/article/view/4826
Lystrosaurus murrayi and L. declivis are two dicynodont (Therapsida, or mammal-like reptile) species commonly represented in Triassic deposits which are referred to as the âLystrosaurus Assemblage Zoneâ of the South African Karoo, postdating the Permo-Triassic boundary at 252 million years ago. The holotypes of these two species are curated in the Natural History Museum in London. Unfortunately, both are fragmentary (personal observation). Despite the fragmentary condition of the holotypes, Cluver, Cluver and King and Brink accepted the view that at least two species of Lystrosaurus (L. murrayi and L. declivis) could be distinguished.
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Johannes MÃller, Constanze Bickelmann and Gabriela Sobral (2018)
The Evolution and Fossil History of Sensory Perception in Amniote Vertebrates.
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 46 (advance online publication)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-082517-010120
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-earth-082517-010120
Sensory perception is of crucial importance for animals to interact with their biotic and abiotic environment. In amniotes, the clade including modern mammals (Synapsida), modern reptiles (Reptilia), and their fossil relatives, the evolution of sensory perception took place in a stepwise manner after amniotes appeared in the Carboniferous. Fossil evidence suggests that Paleozoic taxa had only a limited amount of sensory capacities relative to later forms, with the majority of more sophisticated types of sensing evolving during the Triassic and Jurassic. Alongside the evolution of improved sensory capacities, various types of social communication evolved across different groups. At present there is no definitive evidence for a relationship between sensory evolution and species diversification. It cannot be excluded, however, that selection for improved sensing was partially triggered by biotic interactions, e.g., in the context of niche competition, whereas ecospace expansion, especially during the Mesozoic, might also have played an important role.
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