The evolution of non-avian dinosaurs during the Cenozoic would have been constrained by the same continental movements that gave us the endemic faunas of Australia and Madagascar, so there would likely have been convergent evolution of dinosaur groups like with placental mammals and Australian marsupials.
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"This, in turn, demonstrates for the first time that at least some dinosaurs could move between North Africa and southern Europe at the end of the Mesozoic, and runs counter to long-standing hypotheses that have argued that Africa's dinosaur faunas were isolated from others during this time," Lamanna said.
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Essentially, it seems that a bony tail comes along with large body size, having body armor, and being a herbivore, according to the paper published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "We suggest that the evolution of tail weaponry is rare because large, armored herbivores are uncommon in extant terrestrial faunas," and have been rare throughout evolutionary history, study authors Victoria Arbour and Lindsay Zanno from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences write.
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This is an example of how isolated faunas develop differently.
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The Cambro- Ordovician Formations and Faunas of South Chosen. Palaeontology, Pt.3, Cambrian Faunas of South Chosen with a Special Study on the Cambrian Genera and Families. Jour. Fac, Sci, Imp, Univ, Tokyo, Sec.II, V.4, pt.2, pp.49-344.
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Megacheirans were important components of several faunas, including the Burgess, Wheeler and Maotianshan Shales Lagerstatten.
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Sepkoski is perhaps best known for his global compendia of marine animal families and genera, data sets that continue to motivate a tremendous amount of paleobiological research. Sepkoski himself explored his compendium very thoroughly. In 1981, he identified three great Evolutionary Faunas in the marine animal fossil record. Each of his Evolutionary Faunas, the Cambrian, Paleozoic, and Modern Faunas, is composed of Linnean classes of animals that have covarying diversity patterns, characteristic rates of turnover, and broadly similar ecologies.
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The specific epithet honours Australian palaeontologist Suzanne Hand, a prominent researcher of the fossil faunas of Riversleigh.
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"Dos nuevas 'faunas' de reptiles triasicos de Argentina". Gondwana Stratigraphy (IUGS Symposium, Buenos Aires) 2:283-306.
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The specific name honours the French hydrobiologist Gilles Segura for his contribution to the study of fish faunas.
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The two species of Knoetschkesuchus were part of similar faunas, in both of which they functioned as small predators ecologically partitioned from the other contemporary crocodilians; it is likely that these faunas originated through dispersal over larger landmasses. A similar faunal exchange occurred with the Wessex-Weald Basin of England.
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Dinosaur biostratigraphy studies the distribution of dinosaur taxa through rock layers. It can be useful for dating and correlating rock units and reconstructiong ancient ecosystems. Most dinosaur-bearing rock formations do not contain multiple distinct stratigraphically separated faunas. Typically dinosaur faunas are static throughout a formation or change piecemeal over time.
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Flower, R. H. 1976. Ordovician Cephalopod Faunas and Their Role in Correlation; The Ordovician System; Paleontological Association symposium 1974.
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Complex eurypterid faunas, compromising several different species in different ecological roles, are typical of the period. These faunas were typically dominated by one or more particular eurypterid families, the dominant groups depending on the environment and location. Three such types of eurypterid faunas have been documented from the late Silurian, out of which a Carcinosomatidae- Pterygotidae fauna is the most marine type. All known examples of Carcinosoma are known from marine beds, typically occurring with trilobites, starfish, bryozoans, brachiopods, linguloids and other marine animals.
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Thus, the incipient separation of these faunas could have led to interchange in some but allopatric speciation in other groups.
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Conway Morris, S. 1993 Ediacaran-like fossils in Cambrian Burgess Shale-type faunas of North America. Palaeontology 36, 593–635.
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Likewise among lambeosaurs, only the single genus Hypacrosaurus remains. Inland faunas are distinguished by a Saurolophus-Anchiceratops association while more coastal areas were characterized by Pachyrhinosaurus and Edmontosaurus. Pachyrhinosaurus occurred as far north as Alaska. "Archaic" elements such as hypilophodonts like Parksosaurus and the "(re)appearance" of basal neoceratopsians like Montanoceratops begin characterizing inland faunas.
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Most dinosaur-bearing rock formations do not contain multiple distinct faunas at different positions within the formation's stratigraphic column. Usually the lower sediments of a given formation will contain the same kinds of dinosaurs as the upper sediments, or the species composition changes only gradually. However, some researchers had argued that the Two Medicine Formation was an exception, preserving multiple distinct dinosaur faunas. Later research came to find that the supposedly distinct dinosaur faunas at different levels of the formations were more similar than had been previously thought.
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Achelousaurus Most dinosaur-bearing rock formations do not contain multiple distinct faunas at different positions within the formation's stratigraphic column. Usually the lower sediments of a given formation will contain the same kinds of dinosaurs as the upper sediments, or the species composition changes only gradually. However, some researchers had argued that the Two Medicine Formation was an exception, preserving multiple distinct dinosaur faunas. Later research came to find that the supposedly distinct dinosaur faunas at different levels of the formations were more similar than had been previously thought.
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Introduction - faunas, behaviour and evolution. In: Callaway JM, Nicholls EL. (Eds.), Ancient Marine Reptiles. Academic Press, San Diego, pp. 401-421.
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3, p. 61-115.Rasetti, F. 1951. Middle Cambrian stratigraphy and faunas of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol.
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The distribution and sequence of Carboniferous coral faunas. Geological Magazine, 85, 121–148. #Hill, D., 1949. Jack, Robert Logan (1845–1921).
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At least some non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs survived into the Late Cretaceous, postulating a Lazarus taxa situation for late Cretaceous pterosaur faunas.
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Fossil remains have been reported from the Upper Ohio Valley in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and Pleistocene cave faunas in Texas.
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30(3) supp. If dispersal to the European archipelago did take place via a North Atlantic route, it could not have happened until near the close of the Cretaceous Period, based on paleogeographic and paleontologic studies.Le Loeuff, J., 1991, The Campano-Maastrichtian vertebrate faunas of southern Europe and their relationship with other faunas in the world; paleobiogeographic implications.
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The Castilletes Formation record also expands the geographic range of Miocene endemic crocodilian faunas to latitudes equivalent to those of Central America.
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Joan Crockford-Beattie (born Joan Marion Crockford, January 1919 – 2015) was an Australian geologist and palaeontologist who specialised in Permian bryozoan faunas.
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Circum- or Trans-Pacific correlation of Palaeozoic coral faunas. Proceedings of the Ninth Pacific Science Congress, 12, 246–248. #Hill, D., 1961.
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An extinction pulse occurred during the Wuchiapingian; faunas were recovering when another larger extinction pulse, the Permian–Triassic extinction event devastated life.
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Although faunas began rebuilding complex trophic structures and refilling guilds after the Capitanian extinction event, diversity and disparity fell further until the boundary.
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Bolivosteus chacomensis is a rhenanid placoderm from the Eifelian of Bolivia, and is the only placoderm known from the “Malvinokaffric” invertebrate faunas. The Malvinokaffric faunas represent a series of cold-water ecosystems near or at the South Pole during the Middle Devonian, and apparently lacked the presence of ammonoids, bryozoa, or colonial corals. B. chacomensis is known from skull fragments and scales.
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The Alcoota and Bullock Creek fossil faunas provide evidence that aridification was in progress in northern Australia during the mid-Miocene geological time period.
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The mudstone beds of the San Jose Formation are locally rich in fossils. These include the Almagre and Largo faunas of the early Eocene.
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The sequence and distribution of upper Palaeozoic coral faunas. Australian Journal of Science, 19, 42–61. #Hill, D., 1957. Ordovician corals from New South Wales.
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Also as seen in graptolites, many of the taxa that were common during the Hirnantian were eurytopic species, high-latitude immigrants, or endemic, relict faunas.
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Most importantly, they sequentially replaced one another as dominant groups during the Phanerozoic. Sepkoski modeled the Evolutionary Faunas using three coupled logistic functions, but the underlying drivers of the prominent shift in taxonomic composition represented by the three faunas remains unknown. Sepkoski was married to paleontologist Christine Janis, a specialist in fossil mammals. His son (from a previous marriage) is the historian of science David Sepkoski.
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Above them are two more informal members. These preserve a younger, Tiffanian fauna.Libed 2005 The Puercan and Torrejonian faunas are further subdivided into several biostratigraphic zones.
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Cambrian stratigraphy and trilobite faunas of southeastern Newfoundland. Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 88, 1-156. Acontheus inarmatus minutus, from the Drumian Stage, Franconian Forest (German: Frankenwald), Germany.
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As most large Lujan herbivores were xenarthrans, low metabolic rate may be a feature of the entire clade, allowing relatively low- resource scrublands to support large numbers of huge animals. Faunal analysis also shows far fewer large predators in pre-GABI South American faunas than would be expected based on current faunas in similar environments. This suggests other factors than predation controlled the numbers of xenarthrans. South America had no placental predatory mammals until the Pleistocene, and xenarthran large-mammal faunas may have been vulnerable to many factors including a rise in numbers of mammalian predators, resource use by spreading North American herbivores with faster metabolisms and higher food requirements, and climate change.
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Frith Quarry is a nationally important geological site providing exposures of Middle Jurassic rocks. These are considered to be of great significance in interpreting the Inferior Oolite succession of the Cotswolds. Specimens collected, and the exposures of Oolite Marl and Lower Trigonia Grit, have provided rich brachipod and ammonite faunas. The ammonite faunas are significant in the Cotswolds being rare, and thus the site is important for geological research into the Jurassic period.
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The Harrison Institute is home to over 50,000 scientific specimens. Its collection includes 33,000 recent and fossil mammals and 18,000 recent birds. The fossil mammal collection is growing rapidly and contains holdings of national and international importance. These include Quaternary faunas from the UK and Poland and Tertiary faunas from the UK. The Recent bird collection is the oldest collection in the Institute with some specimens prepared in the first half of the 19th century.
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Sakmarian geography. Geologischen Rundschau, 47, 590–629. #Hill,D., 1959. Distribution and sequence of Silurian coral faunas. Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 92, 151–173.
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Arizonasaurus is from the middle Triassic Moenkopi Formation of northern Arizona. The presence of a poposauroid in the early Middle Triassic suggests that the divergence of birds and crocodiles occurred earlier than previously thought. Ctenosauriscids from the Middle Triassic allow the distribution of Triassic faunas to be more widespread, now in Europe, Asia, North America and Africa. The fauna of the Moenkopi Formation represents a stage transitional fauna between the faunas of older and younger age.
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The skeletal anatomy of Peradectes is consistent with at least a partially arboreal lifestyle.Rose, K.D (2012). The importance of Messel for interpreting Eocene Holarctic mammalian faunas. Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments 92, 631–647.
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The care of type specimens. News Bulletin, Geological Society of Australia, 2, 2–3. #Hill, D., 1954. Coral faunas from the Silurian of New South Wales and the Devonian of Western Australia.
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Among the fauna are flamingos and vicuñas, lizards of the genus Liolaemus, the frog Pleurodema marmoratum and the toad Rhinella spinulosa. The amphibian and reptile faunas are little known, unlike the bird fauna.
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142 and questionably from Saudi Arabia,Jean-Claude Fischer, Jurassic Gastropod Faunas of Central Saudi Arabia, GeoArabia, Vol. 6, no. 1 (2001), p. 25 as well as the lower Cretaceous of TexasStanton, pp.
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In this work she describes a various amount of species of mollusks from the northeaster coast of South America. Among these mollusks a majority of them were discovered to be new species. Using her stratigraphy knowledge, she was able to find a correlation of those faunas with similar faunas around the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. The monograph details mostly on fossils from the geological epoch of the Lower Miocene that were found in Rio Pirabas and Bragança to Belém.
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During the Permian Cathaysia/South China was located near the Equator and within the Paleo-Tethys Ocean together with the North China continent and these two small continents share what is often called the "Cathaysian floras and faunas" (in contrast to the "Gondwanan floras and faunas"). As North and South China collided during the Late Triassic the Qinling Ocean closed. South China was covered with coal forests formed by seed ferns of the order Callistophytales, whilst tree-like Lycopodiophytes survived into the Permian.
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The discovery of the genus increases the anatomical knowledge of ornithopods and adds new data on the compositions of dinosaur faunas that lived in Patagonia close to Antarctica at the end of the Cretaceous.
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Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. W. H. Freeman and Company, New York 1-698V. J. Sach and E. P. J. Heizmann. 2001. Stratigraphy and mammal faunas of the Brackwassermolasse in the surroundings of Ulm (Southwest Germany).
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Steininger, 1999, pp. 16-17 The reference locality used to correlate faunas with this zone is Pontlevoy-Thenay in France; other localities include La Retama in Spain, Castelnau-d'Arbieu in France, and Sandelzhausen in Germany.
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Eaton, J. G., Cifelli, R. L., Hutchison, J. H., Kirkland, J. I., and Parrish, M. J., 1999, Cretaceous vertebrate faunas from the Kaiparowits Plateau, south-central Utah: Utah Geological Survey Miscellaneous Publication, v. 99-1.
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"Upper Cretaceous dinosaur faunas of North America." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 69(1): 133-159.Sternberg, C.M. (1936). "The systematic position of Trachodon." Journal of Paleontology, 10(7): 652-655.Sternberg, C.M. (1939).
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More recent studies show a mixed effect. Multituberculate faunas in North America and Europe do indeed decline in correlation to the introduction of rodents in these areas. However, Asian multituberculate faunas co-existed with rodents with minimal extinction events, implying that competition was not the main cause for the extinction of Asiatic multituberculates. As a whole, it seems that Asian multituberculates, unlike North American and European species, never recovered from the KT event, which allowed the evolution and propagation of rodents in the first place.
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The ABC islands are three islands off northwestern Venezuela that are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. They have a diverse rodent fauna, including many oryzomyines and several others, notably including many from Pleistocene faunas.
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Hiatus concretions are also often significantly bored by worms and bivalves.Wilson, M.A., and Taylor, P.D., 2001, Palaeoecology of hard substrate faunas from the Cretaceous Qahlah Formation of the Oman Mountains: Palaeontology. v. 44, pp. 21-41.
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During the Eocene, plants and marine faunas became quite modern. Many modern bird orders first appeared in the Eocene. The Eocene oceans were warm and teeming with fish and other sea life. The first carcharinid sharks.
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Key works include Newbigin's Animal Geography,Newbigin, Marion, 1913. Animal Geography: The Faunas of the Natural Regions of the Globe. Clarendon, Oxford. Bartholomew, Clarke, and Grimshaw’s Atlas of Zoogeography,Bartholomew, J.G., Clarke, W.E., Grimshaw, P.H., 1911.
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Peng, G.Z., Ye, Y., Gao, Y.H., Shu, C.K., Jiang, S. (2005): Jurassic dinosaur faunas in Zigong. Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 236 pp Its type species is largely based on several undiagnostic teeth from the Shangshaximiao Formation.
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Bulletins of American Paleontology 363: 1-560. and in the subfamily Conorbiinae by Harzhauser (2007).Harzhauser M. (2007). "Oligocene and Aquitanian gastropod faunas from the Sultanate of Oman and their biogeographic implications for the western Indo-Pacific".
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American Nearctic and Neotropical land planarian (Tricladida: Terricola) faunas. Pedobiologia 42 441-451. For example, planarians of the genus Bipalium are widely distributed in North America,Ducey, P. K., L-J. West, G. Shaw, J. DeLisle. 2005.
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Aphelops is an extinct genus of hornless rhinoceros endemic to North America. It lived from the Middle Miocene to the early Pliocene, during which it was a common component of North American mammalian faunas along with Teleoceras.
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The Ellesmeroceratidae also gave rise at about the close of the Gasconadian to the Endocerida, Tarphycerida, and to the Orthocerida through the ancestral Baltoceratidae, at which time they cease to be the dominant element in cephalopod faunas.
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Agnolin, Ezcurra, Pais and Salisbury, (2010). "A reappraisal of the Cretaceous non-avian dinosaur faunas from Australia and New Zealand: Evidence for their Gondwanan affinities." Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 8(2): 257-300. However, White et al.
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Notes on the Permo- Carboniferous floras of Queensland. Queensland government mining journal, 34: 37-38. Whitehouse, F. W. (1936-1939). The Cambrian faunas of north-eastern Australia. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, 11: 59-78, 179-182.
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Jugulator occurs in the mid-Cretaceous deposits of the Cedar Mountain Formation, where several of North America's more iconic dinosaurs like Utahraptor and Cedarosaurus occur. A large variety of mammal species are known from here as well, including other eutriconodonts like Astroconodon and Corviconodon as well as multituberculates like Cedaromys and Janumys and several therian mammals such as Montanalestes and Atokatheridium. These diverse mammal faunas offer a transition from dominant taxa in the Early Cretaceous and the multituberculate and therian dominated laurasian mammalian faunas of the Late Cretaceous.
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In the mid-19th century, John Phillips suggested three great systems: Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Caenozoic. Writing after Sepkoski, Brenchley and Harper suggested that there were two early evolutionary faunas before the three of Sepkoski: Ediacaran and Tomottian. They also point out similarities with four "evolutionary terrestrial plant floras": Early Vascular, Pteridophytes, Gymnospores, Angiospores; and three "evolutionary terrestrial tetrapod faunas": "Megadynasty I (Carboniferous- early Permian)" "primitive amphibians and reptiles, most notably ... Dimetrodon", "Megadynasty II (early Permian-mid-Triassic)" "mammal-like therapsids", and "Megadynasty III (late Triassic-Cretaceous)" "included the age of the dinosaurs".
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The end of the Ordovician–Silurian extinction event occurred when melting glaciers caused the sea level to rise and eventually stabilize. Biodiversity, with the sustained re-flooding of continental shelves at the onset of the Silurian, rebounded within the surviving orders. Following the major loss of diversity as the end-Ordovician, Silurian communities were initially less complex and broader niched. Highly endemic faunas, which characterized the Late Ordovician, were replaced by faunas that were amongst the most cosmopolitan in the Phanerozoic, biogeographic patterns that persisted throughout most of the Silurian.
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Spindle diagram for the evolution of vertebrates. The diagram is based on . Sea levels in the Devonian were generally high. Marine faunas continued to be dominated by bryozoa, diverse and abundant brachiopods, the enigmatic hederellids, microconchids and corals.
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Her work also contains a section of detailed images of the corals found in Western Faunas. Duncan's work was extremely detailed and meticulous, and her descriptions continue to be used as example of thoroughness in modern paleontology classes.
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This is reflected in the deep lake carbonates, which show very fine laminations, interpreted as varves.Trewin, N.H. & Davidson, R.G. 1999. "Lake-level changes, sedimentation and faunas in a Middle Devonian basin-margin fish bed". Journal of the Geological Society.
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Extinct vertebrate faunas of the badlands of Bautista Creek and San Timoteo Canyon, southern California. University of California Publications in Geology 12(5):277-424 but was subsequently reassigned to Rhynchotherium.FRICK, C. (1933): New Remains of Trilophodont-Tetralophodont mastodons.
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The Kristianstad Basin has also yielded fossils of several varieties of reptiles, including plesiosaurs, turtles and crocodylomorphs, as well as one of the most diverse mosasaur faunas in the world and the only non-avian dinosaurs known from Sweden.
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Collom, C.J. 2000. High-resolution stratigraphy, regional correlation, and report of molluscan faunas: Colorado Group (Cenomanian – Coniacian) interval, Late Cretaceous, east-central Saskatchewan. In: Summary of Investigations 2000, Vol. 1, Saskatchewan Geological Survey, Sask. Energy Mines, Miscellaneous Report 2000-4.1, p.
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The Nautiloid Order Ellesmeroceratida (Cephalopoda). State Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Memoir 12:234S. C. Hook and R. H. Flower. 1977. Late Canadian (Zones J, K) cephalopod faunas from Southwestern United States.
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Gregory, J. T. (1972). Vertebrate faunas of the Dockum Group, Triassic, eastern New Mexico and west Texas. New Mexico Geological Society Guidebook, 23, 120-23. When it comes to phytosaurs, most inferences on ecology are in comparison with modern day crocodilians.
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Biostratigraphy and biochronology of early Arikareean through late Hemingfordian small mammal faunas from the Nebraska Panhandle and adjacent areas. Paludicola 4(3):81-113 Palaeomerycids such as Cranioceras and other Dromomerycinae continued to live in North America until the early Pliocene.
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Statistical analysis of marine losses at this time suggests that the decrease in diversity was mainly caused by a sharp increase in extinctions, rather than a decrease in speciation. Following such a major loss of diversity, Silurian communities were initially less complex and broader niched. Highly endemic faunas, which characterized the Late Ordovician, were replaced by faunas that were amongst the most cosmopolitan in the Phanerozoic, biogeographic patterns that persisted throughout most of the Silurian. The Late Ordovician mass extinction had few of the long-term ecological impacts associated with the Permian–Triassic and Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction events.
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Some Norwegian terranes have faunas distinct from those of either Baltica or Laurentia and were island arcs that originated in the Iapetus Ocean and were accreted to Baltica. The Baltica craton most likely underlies these terranes and the continent-ocean boundary passes several kilometres off Norway, but, since the North Atlantic opened c. 54 Ma were the Iapetus Ocean closed, it is unlikely the craton also reached into Laurentia. The margin stretches north to Novaya Zemlya where early Palaeozoic Baltica faunas have been found, but the sparsity of data makes it difficult to locate the margin in the Arctic.
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Despite the closure of Olson's Gap, the presence of an extinction event at the Kungurian–Roadian boundary was still disputed. It was argued that the observed decrease in diversity might be due to the shift in the location of greatest sample size from the palaeo-equatorial to the palaeo-temperate regions: equatorial regions tend to have a higher diversity in most modern groups. However, a thorough review of the tetrapod-bearing formations during the Kungurian and the Roadian found evidence that the faunal turnover at this time is not a result of the shift in sampling locality; the early Permian temperate faunas are more similar to the early Permian equatorial faunas than the middle Permian temperate faunas. It was also shown that throughout the Permian, the highest diversity was found in temperate regions rather than equatorial regions, and therefore the fall in diversity could not be due to increased sampling of temperate latitudes.
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The Endoceratidae arose from the upper Canadian (Lower Ordovician) Piloceratidae according to Rousseau Flower,Flower, R. H. (May 1955). Status of Endoceroid Classification; Jour. Paleo. 29(3) pp 327-370Flower, R.H. 1976. Ordovician Cephalopod Faunas and Their Role in Correlation,proceedings Paleontological Association.
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Stratigraphy and mammal faunas of the Brackwassermolasse in the surroundings of Ulm (Southwest Germany). Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde Serie B (Geologie und Paläontologie) 310:1-95 Diceratherium had two horns side-by-side on its nose. It lived during the Miocene Epoch.
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Yarasuchus (meaning "red crocodile") is an extinct genus of avemetatarsalian archosaur that lived during the Anisian stage of the Middle Triassic of India.Bandyopadhyay, S. and Sengupta, D. P. (1999). Middle Triassic vertebrate faunas from India. Journal of African Earth Sciences 29: 233–241.
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On Sulawesi and Flores, evidence of a succession of distinct endemic island faunas has been found, including dwarfed elephants, dating until the Middle Pleistocene. Around the Early Middle Pleistocene, these dwarfed elephants were replaced by new immigrants of larger to intermediate sizes.
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A. alleni is found only in alpine moorlands of Mount Kenya, Mount Elgon, and the Aberdares Mountains in Kenya.Greer AE (1968). "Mode of reproduction in the squamate faunas of three altitudinally correlated life zones in East Africa". Herpetologica 24 (3): 229-232.
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Plesiadapidae is a family of plesiadapiform mammals related to primates known from the Paleocene and Eocene of North America, Europe, and Asia. Plesiadapids were abundant in the late Paleocene, and their fossils are often used to establish the ages of fossil faunas.
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Suniana is a genus of butterflies in the family Hesperiidae, the skippers. It is composed of three species, all native to the Australian faunal region, Australia and several surrounding island nations.de Jong, R. (1998). Halmahera and Seram: different histories, but similar butterfly faunas.
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Identification Manual of the Freshwater Clams of Florida. Fla. Dept. Environmental Regulation, Technical Series 4(2): 1-83. but China and Southeast Asia also support very diverse faunas. Freshwater mussels occupy a wide range of habitats, but most often occupy lotic waters, i.e.
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Schultz, G.E. 1977. Blancan and post-Blancan faunas in the Texas Panhandle. In: Schultz, G.E. (ed), Guidebook: Field conference on late Cenozoic biostratigraphy of the Texas Panhandle and adjacent Oklahoma: West Texas State University, Kilgore Research Center, Special Publication 1, pp. 105-145.
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Late Miocene mammals from the Mauvilla Local Fauna, Alabama. Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History 46(1):1-28V. J. Sach and E. P. J. Heizmann. 2001. Stratigraphy and mammal faunas of the Brackwassermolasse in the surroundings of Ulm (Southwest Germany).
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Barrie Rickards' work concentrated on the systematics and biodiversity of graptolites in the Palaeozoic. This led to a better understanding of their paleobiogeography and evolution, the manner of their recovery from mass extinctions, and a more precise understanding of Lazarus taxa, refugia and relict faunas.
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1976)Flower, R. H. 1976. Ordovician Cephalopod Faunas and Their Role in Correlation, in Bassett, M.C. (Ed); The Ordovician System: Proceedings of a Paleontological Association Symposium; Birmingham, Eng. 1974; Univ of Wales and Welsh Nat’l Mus Press instead included the Bassleroceritidae in the Tarphycerida.
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Though the North Atlantic was opening, a land connection appears to have remained between North America and Europe since the faunas of the two regions are very similar. India continued its journey away from Africa and began its collision with Asia, creating the Himalayan orogeny.
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However, in 2016, Scott Hartman found the hand anatomy, relatively straight back and largely immobile shoulder girdle of Riojasaurus supported it being a biped. No skull was found with the first skeleton of Riojasaurus,Bonaparte, J.F. (1969). Dos nuevas "faunas" de reptiles triásicos de Argentina.
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Plesiadapoidea was an extinct superfamily of primates that existed during the Paleocene and Eocene in Canada, Europe, and Asia.Thewissen, J.G.M., Williams, E.M., and Hussain, S.T. (2001). "Eocene mammal faunas from northern Indo- Pakistan". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 21 (2): 347–366. DOI:[0347:EMFFNI]2.0.
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A comprehensive assemblage of Triassic (including Rhaetic), Lower Jurassic and Middle Jurassic fissure fillings are well displayed. The Rhaetic fissure fillings have yielded the richest assemblage of vertebrate faunas known from the British Triassic.English Nature citation sheet for the site . Retrieved 10 August 2006.
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Northern biomes were dominated by pachyrhinosaurs and protoceratopsians. Ecological zonation based on altitude seems to be present as well. Lehman speculates that the Judithian dinosaur faunas may represent the "climax" of "individuality" in dinosaur communities. Ecological disturbance brought them to an end during the Edmontonian.
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Notes on the sedimentary iron ores of Maryland and their dinosaurian faunas. Maryland Geological Survey Special Publications 3:87-115. It is a tooth taxon, based solely on a single tooth. Since it has not been formally described, it is also a nomen nudum.
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From Cambrian times (about 550 million years ago) the western Iapetus Ocean began to grow progressively narrower due to this subduction. The same happened further north and east, where Avalonia and Baltica began to move towards Laurentia from the Ordovician (488-444 million years ago) onward. Trilobite faunas of the continental shelves of Baltica and Laurentia are still very different in the Ordovician, but Silurian faunas show progressive mixing of species from both sides, because the continents moved closer together. In the west, the Iapetus Ocean closed with the Taconic orogeny (480-430 million years ago), when the volcanic island arc collided with Laurentia.
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When Hill returned to Australia she took on the huge task of dating the limestone coral faunas of Australia, using them to outline wide-ranging stratigraphy, and producing papers on the coral faunas of all states except South Australia, some of these with Dr Walter Heywood Bryan. Her work on corals became the worldwide standard. From 1937 to 1942, Hill was the recipient of a Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) grant and worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. In 1939, Hill was involved with the Geological Survey of Queensland, consulted for the Shell Corporation and was Secretary of the Royal Society of Queensland.
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Presented above are the most well-documented examples of modern adaptive radiation, but other examples are known. On Madagascar, birds of the family Vangidae are marked by very distinct beak shapes to suit their ecological roles. Madagascan mantellid frogs have radiated into forms that mirror other tropical frog faunas, with the brightly colored mantellas (Mantella) having evolved convergently with the Neotropical poison dart frogs of Dendrobatidae, while the arboreal Boophis species are the Madagascan equivalent of tree frogs and glass frogs. The pseudoxyrhophiine snakes of Madagascar have evolved into fossorial, arboreal, terrestrial, and semi-aquatic forms that converge with the colubroid faunas in the rest of the world.
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The mode of preservation preserves a number of different faunas; most famously, the Cambrian "Burgess Shale type fauna" of the Burgess Shale itself, Chengjiang, Sirius Passet, and Wheeler Formation. However, different faunal assemblages are also preserved, such as the microfossils of Riphean (Tonian-Cryogenian age) lagerstätten.
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Fish remains have been found, and well-preserved cephalopods. The strata exposed are part of the Whitby Mudstone. The discoveries are usually more complete than those from comparable localities. This is an important paleoentomological locality for research into the anatomy and evolution of early insect faunas.
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Knowledge of Paleocene Mammals from the North Horn Formation, Central Utah. The Great Basin Naturalist. Vol. 55:4. Pp. 304-314Cifelli, R.L., Nydam, R.L., Eaton, J.G., Gardner, J.D., Kirkland, J.I. (1999). Vertebrate Faunas of the North Horn Formation (Upper Cretaceous-Lower Paleocene), Emery and Sanpete Counties, Utah.
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Andrews, Peter (1990) Owls, Caves, and Fossils: Predation, Preservation, and Accumulation of Small Mammal Bones in Caves, with an Analysis of the Pleistocene Cave Faunas from Westbury-sub-Mendip, Somerset, UK University of Chicago Press. 231 pg.Curry-Lindahl, K. Photographic Studies of Some Less Familiar Birds: LXXXIV. Eagle Owl.
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Perameles bowensis is an extinct Pliocene-aged species of bandicoot. Fossils have been found in the Wellington Caves of New South Wales.Muirhead, J., Dawson, L. & Archer, M. 1997. Perameles bowensis, a new species of Perameles (Peramelomorphia, Marsupialia) from Pliocene faunas of Bow and Wellington caves, New South Wales.
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Gosforth Park Nature Reserve was designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in 1977. The citation includes: > The locality is regionally important for its aquatic, grassland and woodland > invertebrate faunas which include two nationally rare species, a small > beetle Triplax scutellaris and Adrena alfkenella, a solitary bee.
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The first evidence of extinction came when Everett C. Olson noted a hiatus between early Permian faunas dominated by pelycosaurs and therapsid-dominated faunas of the middle and late Permian. First considered to be a preservational gap in the fossil record, the event was originally dubbed 'Olson's Gap'. To compound the difficulty in identifying the cause of the 'gap', researchers were having difficulty in resolving the uncertainty which exists regarding the duration of the overall extinction and about the timing and duration of various groups' extinctions within the greater process. Theories emerged which suggested the extinction was prolonged, spread out over several million years or that multiple extinction pulses preceded the Permian–Triassic extinction event.
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This occurrence at this single locality within the lower Cantwell Formation has not been documented elsewhere in North America and these trackways represent the first reported encounter between notoriously different dinosaurs from North America. The diversity of the ichnotaxa in this site supports the idea of similar dinosaur faunas between Alaska and Asia during the Late Cretaceous period, specifically with the Nemegt Formation which had relatively wet environments. Fiorillo and colleagues suggested that Alaska represented a "gateway" for faunal exchange between the two continental landmasses and the existence of a "Cretaceous" Beringian land bridge further allowed this mixing of faunas, which was encouraged as similar habitats were present within Asia and North America.
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Gasparinisuchus differs from other peirosaurids in having a broad snout and in lacking an antorbital fenestra. Although overlapping materials between the Gasparinisuchus and P. torminni limited to the premaxilla and the dentition, Gasparinisuchus can be differentiate from Peirosaurus on the basis of its broad, rounded rostrum, anteroposteriorly short premaxilla, reduced perinareal fossa, and short premaxillary interdental spaces. Peirosaurus is known from the late Maastrichtian (latest Cretaceous) of Brazil, and the presence of MOZ 1750 PV in Argentina was originally taken as evidence for a link between Brazilian and Argentinian Late Cretaceous faunas. The removal of MOZ 1750 PV from the genus Peirosaurus suggests that the older Argentinian and younger Brazilian faunas were mostly distinct.
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The ancestor-descendant relationships of these small dicynodonts to those of the Permian is unclear, but they do not appear to be directly related to any known Permian species. It has been suggested that the ancestors of the small Triassic dicynodonts (as well as the successful Triassic Kannemeyeriiformes) must have been present outside of the well-sampled historical localities of the Karoo Basin. The discovery of Thliptosaurus may support this idea, as it could indicate that local, endemic second-order faunas existed amongst the more widespread well known faunas of the Daptocephalus AZ. More crucially, it suggests that such 'missing diversities' may be present even in the under- sampled localities of otherwise historically important regions like the Karoo Basin.
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They were an important component of nearly all Paleocene faunas of Europe and North America, and of some late Paleocene faunas of Asia. Multituberculates were also most diverse in size during the Paleocene, ranging from the size of a very small mouse to that of a panda. However, in Asia, Palaeocene and Eocene multituberculates compose a very small percentage of the overall local mammalian fauna, having never managed to recover from the KT event in the same way that their North American and European counterparts did. Gondwanatheres are common in the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar and India, the Paleocene and Eocene of Seymour Island, and occur in South America from the Late Cretaceous to the Miocene.
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Die Natur des culmischen Kieselschiefers. Abh. senckenberg. naturf. Ges., 41, p. 191-241 The Lower Permian of Sicily hosts radiolarites in limestone olistoliths,Catalano, R. et al. (1991). Permian circumpacific deep-water faunas from the western Tethys (Sicily, Italy) - New evidences for the position of the Permian Tethys. Palaeogeogr. Palaeocli. Palaeoeco.
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The GSSP is located in the Trefawr Track section, 500m north of Cwm-coed-Aeron Farm, Wales, UK. The GSSP lies within the gently-dipping blocky mudstones of the Trefawr Formation, which principally yield abundant and diverse shelly faunas, but also contain enough graptolites to allow recognition of several biozones.
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Though no individual genus or subfamily is found worldwide, the Mosasauridae as a whole achieved global distribution during the Late Cretaceous with many locations typically having complex mosasaur faunas with multiple different genera and species in different ecological niches. Two African countries are particularly rich in mosasaurs: Morocco and Angola.
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A macroevolutionary benchmark study is Sepkoski's work on marine animal diversity through the Phanerozoic. His iconic diagram of the numbers of marine families from the Cambrian to the Recent illustrates the successive expansion and dwindling of three "evolutionary faunas" that were characterized by differences in origination rates and carrying capacities.
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He was devoted to Lepidoptera and wrote many scientific papers on them, principally faunistic works. The most important were the faunas of the Auvergne (1850), the Alps (de 1854 à 1858), the Pyrénées-Orientales (1858), Sicily (1860) and Corsica (1861). Charles Oberthür (1845-1924) acquired his collection after his death.
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Lithologies, invertebrate faunas, and plant and pollen data support the above interpretation. The extensive red beds and caliche horizons of the upper Two Medicine are evidence of at least seasonally arid conditions. Some of the dinosaurs from the formation have been speculated to have shown signs of drought-related death.
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An updated Telychian (Late Llandovery, Silurian) conodont zonation based on Baltic faunas. Peep Männik, Lethaia, Volume 40, Issue 1, pages 45–60, March 2007, The Sheinwoodian (Wenlock) is defined between the acritarch biozone 5 and the last appearance of Pterospathodus amorphognathoides. The global boundary stratotype point is in Hughley Brook in Apedale, U.K.
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Pachyrhinosaurus occurred as far north as Alaska. "Archaic" elements such as hypsilophodonts like Parksosaurus and the "(re)appearance" of basal neoceratopsians like Montanoceratops begin characterizing inland faunas. Paleontologist Thomas M. Lehman described the Edmontonian Arrhinoceratops as a likely ancestor for the Lancian Triceratops. Ecological disturbance brought them to an end during the Edmontonian.
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He also researches the Lower Cretaceous stratigraphic relationship between western Africa and Brazil by reconstructing the paleobiology from fossil floras and faunas. He was president of the French National Museum of Natural History from 1985 to 1990. He received the Sue Tyler Friedman Medal in 2009 for work in the history of geology.
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A Rojh (Neelgai) near Rawla Mandi.by Shivender The waters of canals has changed both flora and faunas of this area. Apart from domestic and common animals Rawla mandi area has also some wild animals. Rojh or Neelgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus,fox,jackal,rabbit,deer are common mammals found in farms and sandy dunes.
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The Armenoceratidae have their beginning in Armenoceras which first appeared near the beginning of the Chazyan, 2nd stage of the Middle Ordovician in older established chronologies, in northeastern China, Manchuria,Flower 1976 Ordovician Cephalopod Faunas and Their Role in Correlation. in Basset M. C. (ed) The Ordovician System. Palaeonological Association. derived from Wutinoceras.
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Obituary Walter Heywood Bryan. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, 78, 113–114. #Hill, D., 1967. The sequence and distribution of Ludlovian, Lower Devonian, and Couvinian faunas in the Union of Societ Socialist Republics. Palaeontology, 10, 660–693. #Hill, D., 1967. Phylum Archaeocyatha Vologdin 1937. In: Harland, W. B. et al.
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Late Canadian (Zones J,K) Cephalopod Faunas from Southwestern United States: Memoir 32, New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources. They also may have given rise to the Striatoceratidae and to the Narthecoceratidae of the Middle and Late Ordovician. Genera include Tajaroceras, Buttsoceras, Oxfordoceras, Ctenoceras, Troedsonnella and possibly Glenisteroceras and Wolungoceras.
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These were the first gondwanathere mammals to be found outside of Argentina and provided evidence that the mammal faunas of the different Gondwanan (southern) continents were similar to each other. The generic name, Lavanify, means "long tooth" and the specific name, miolaka, means "curved" in Malagasy; both refer to the teeth's shape.
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El Espinal, a new plattenkalk facies locality from the Lower Cretaceous Sierra Madre Formation, Chiapas, southeastern Mexico. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geológicas 23(3):323-333 Harzhauser, 2004;Harzhauser M. (2004). "Oligocene gastropod faunas for the Eastern Mediterranean (Mesohellenic Trough/Greece and Esfahan- Sirjan Basin/Central Iran)". Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg 248: 93-181.
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Garra smarti is a species of cyprinid fish in the genus Garra from Oman. The specific name honours Emma Smart for her studies of the fish faunas of the wadis of the Arabian Peninsula. The original specific name smarti was amended to smartae to reflect the correct gender of the person being honoured.
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Many of the major groups of dinosaurs emerged during the Middle Jurassic, (including cetiosaurs, brachiosaurs, megalosaurs and primitive ornithopods). Descendants of the therapsids, the cynodonts, were still flourishing along with the dinosaurs. These included the tritylodonts and mammals. Mammals remained quite small, but were diverse and numerous in faunas from around the world.
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By the late Cretaceous, boreosphenidans must already have been in the process of replacing archaic mammals like gondwanatheres on the southern continents, as suggested by the presence of Deccanolestes, a placental, in the Cretaceous of India. Averianov, Archibald, and Martin instead placed UA 8699 in the context of faunal similarity and exchange between the late Cretaceous faunas of Europe and Africa, noting the presence of similar animals, such as snakes (Medtsoia) and sauropods (Lirainosaurus and Repetosaurus), in the Cretaceous faunas of Madagascar and the Spanish locality Laño. They proposed the relationship between Lainodon, which is from Laño, and UA 8699 as another example of this relationship and cited a previous prediction by Gheerbrant and Astibia that zhelestids similar to Lainodon would be found in Africa.
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The skull of Rukwasuchus possesses several autapomorphies which distinguished it from other crocodyliforms. These include the presence of a mediolaterally narrow, elongate, and septate internal narial fenestra located anteriorly on the pterygoid, the presence of a markedly depressed posterior border of the parietal that excludes the supraoccipital from the dorsal cranial table, and a ventrally directed descending process of the postorbital with a well-developed posteroventral process. The morphology of the skull and isolated teeth suggests close relations to the peirosaurid Hamadasuchus rebouli from the middle Cretaceous Kem Kem Beds of Morocco. Rukwasuchus is the only known sub-Saharan peirosaurid from Africa, thus representing the only link between middle Cretaceous southern vertebrate faunas and much more abundant and taxonomically diverse faunas from northern Africa.
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Eagle Owl. British Birds, L: 486-490. and even, in the small adult size range for this deer, ,Andrews, Peter (1990) Owls, Caves, and Fossils: Predation, Preservation, and Accumulation of Small Mammal Bones in Caves, with an Analysis of the Pleistocene Cave Faunas from Westbury-sub-Mendip, Somerset, UK University of Chicago Press. 231 pg.
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Morisita's overlap index, named after Masaaki Morisita, is a statistical measure of dispersion of individuals in a population. It is used to compare overlap among samples (Morisita 1959). This formula is based on the assumption that increasing the size of the samples will increase the diversity because it will include different habitats (i.e. different faunas).
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Otsheria is an extinct genus of anomodont from the Permian of Russia.Modesto, S. P. & Rybcynski, N. The amniote faunas of the Russian Permian: implications for Late Permian terrestrial vertebrate biogeography. In Benton, M. J.; Shishkin, M. A.; Unwin, D. M.; Kurochkin, E. N. The Age of Dinosaurs in Russia and Mongolia. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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As with almost all other notoungulates, mesotheriids are known only from the Cenozoic of South America (McKenna and Bell, 1997). Unlike some other families, mesotheriid fossils are not found across the continent. Instead, mesotheriids are most abundant and diverse in faunas from middle latitudes in Bolivia and Chile, particularly the Altiplano (Flynn et al., 2005).
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These faunas extend through the early and late Olenekian stage. They are known from hundreds of sites throughout eastern Europe and preserve a wide array of temnospondyls (primarily trematosaurids), procolophonids, and early archosauriforms. They correspond to a massive river basin, which likely experienced a trend of increasing humidity during the later part of the Olenekian.
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The so-called Vallesian Crisis resulted in the extinction of several mammalian taxa characteristic of the Middle Miocene. The end of the Vallesian, and the beginning of the Turolian, brought the extinction in the west of faunas dominated by the bovids and giraffids characteristic of the so-called sub-Paratethyan or Greek-Iranian province.
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Pierre Mein and Léonard Ginsburg described Lagrivea vireti in 2002 in a review of the ages and faunas of the Miocene fossil sites of La Grive-Saint-Alban in southeastern France.Mein and Ginsburg, 2002, p. 29 They suggested that it was probably a tree squirrel and related to the Sciurini.Mein and Ginsburg, 2002, p.
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Among the xenarthrans have been found remains of the glyptodontine Trachycalyptoides, the dasypodid Chorobates and the pampatherid Kraglievichia, along ground sloths like scelidotheriids, mylodontids, the nothrotherid Xyophorus and a megatherid.Pujos, F., Antoine, P. O., Mamani Quispe, B., Abello, A., & Andrade Flores, R. (2012, September). The Miocene vertebrate faunas of Achiri, Bolivia. In Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (Vol.
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The Journal of Systematic Palaeontology (Print: , online: ) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of palaeontology published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the British Natural History Museum. , the editor-in-chief is Paul D. Taylor. The journal covers papers on new or poorly known faunas and floras and new approaches to systematics. It was established in 2003.
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As former Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology and Senior Curator of Geosciences at the Queensland Museum, Alex Cook is a widely published researcher who is recognised for his work on invertebrate faunas of the Great Artesian Basin and the Palaeozoic of north Queensland.Cook, A.G., Bryan, S.E. & Draper, J.J. (2012).Post-orogenic Mesozoic basins and magmatism. Pp 515-575.
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The first fossil record was found in Cita Canyon, Texas. Subsequent discoveries of specimens were found in four other Texas sites, Tonuco Mountain, New Mexico, western WashingtonJ. K. Morgan and N. H. Morgan. 1995. A New Species of Capromeryx (Mammalia: Artiodactyla) from the Taunton Local Fauna of Washington, and the Correlation with Other Blancan Faunas of Washington and Idaho.
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During the Early Cretaceous dinosaur faunas began to change. Around the same time sea levels began to gradually rise and the Gulf of Mexico extended up into Alaska, dividing North America in two. This formed the Western Interior Seaway, where ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs gradually gave way to mosasaurs. Overhead pterosaurs like Pteranodon of Kansas achieved vast wingspans.
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Megalodon tooth with two great white shark teeth. During the ensuing Pliocene epoch, North Carolina was home to invertebrate faunas including at least 25 species of gastropods and 46 pelecypods. Pliocene fossil scallops are known from the Yorktown Formation of Northampton and Hertford counties. In Columbus and Onslow counties Pliocene fossils are only known south of the Neuse River.
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" Ecology Letters 6.3 (2003): 265-272. Phylogenetically consistent patterns of phenotypic integration have also been recently reported in leaves, floral morphology, and dry fruits as well as in the morphology of some animal organs.Pérez‐Barrales, Rocío, Juan Arroyo, and W. Scott Armbruster. "Differences in pollinator faunas may generate geographic differences in floral morphology and integration in Narcissus papyraceus (Amaryllidaceae).
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Patton is best known for his pioneering works on the evolutionary cytogenetics and systematics of rodents, especially pocket mice (Perognathus/Chaetodipus)Patton, J.L. 1967. Chromosome studies of certain pocket mice, genus Perognathus (Rodentia: Heteromyidae). J. Mammal. 48:27–37 and pocket gophers (Thomomys), the diversification of rainforest faunas, and the impact of climate change on North American mammals.
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Antarcticoceras is a genus of ammonites in the family Ancyloceratidae. It lived during the Early Cretaceous Period (possibly the lower Albian). Antarcticioceras fossils can be found in the Cretaceous rocks of Antarctica and South America.M.R.A. Thomson, « Ammonite faunas of the Lower Cretaceous of south-eastern Alexander Island », British Antarctic Survey Scientific Reports, 80 (1974), p.1-44.
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In : Sprent, J.K. (ed.), Mount Etna caves, University of Queensland Speleological Society, Brisbane, 37–38. #Hill, D., 1971. The bearing of some upper Palaeozoic reefs and coral faunas on the hypotheses of continental drift. Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 103, 93–102. #Hill, D., Playford, G. & Woods, J.T. (eds), 1971.
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Animal exploitation between the fifth and the sixth Cataract c. 8500-7000 BP: a preliminary report on the faunas from El Damer, Abu Darbein and Aneibis, in L.Krzyýaniak, M. Kobusiewicz & J. Alexander (ed.) Environmental Change and Human Culture in the Nile Basin and Northern Africa until the Second Millennium BC (Studies in African Archaeology Vol. 4): 413-9.
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Polacanthinae is a grouping of ankylosaurs, possibly primitive nodosaurids. Polacanthines are late Jurassic to early Cretaceous in age, and appear to have become extinct about the same time a land bridge opened between Asia and North America.Kirkland, J. I. (1996). Biogeography of western North America's mid- Cretaceous faunas - losing European ties and the first great Asian-North American interchange.
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The Late Wisconsin Vertebrate History of Prince of Wales Island, Southeast Alaska: pg. 17-53 (Chapter 2) In Schubert, B. W., Mead, J. I., and Graham, R. W. (eds.) Ice Age Cave Faunas of North America, Indiana Univ. Press. • Heaton, Timothy H. 2003. The Southern Expansion of the North American Arctic Mammal Fauna during the Last Glacial Maximum. pg.
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The dry forests of central India and Indochina are notable for their diverse large vertebrate faunas. Madagascar dry deciduous forests and New Caledonia dry forests are also highly distinctive (pronounced endemism and a large number of relictual taxa) for a wide range of taxa and at higher taxonomic levels. Trees use underground water during the dry seasons.
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Other regional faunas (countries as opposed to smaller regions) of this broad date whose subject is Diptera are Johan Wilhelm Zetterstedt, 1855 Diptera Scandinaviae disposita et descripta. Tomus duodecimus seu supplementum tertium, continens addenda, corrigenda & emendanda tomis undecim prioribus. Officina Lundbergiana, Lundae (Lund), Francis Walker Insecta Britannica Diptera, 1851–1856 and Ignaz Rudolph Schiner Fauna Austriaca. Die Fliegen (Diptera).
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"A reappraisal of the Cretaceous non-avian dinosaur faunas from Australia and New Zealand: Evidence for their Gondwanan affinities." Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 8(2): 257-300. Leptoceratopsids range in age from Gryphoceratops, of the late Santonian, to Leptoceratops, right at the end of the Cretaceous in the late Maastrichtian. Gryphoceratops is the first definitive record of Santonian leptoceratopsid.
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The Guabirotuba Formation is one of few formations in Brazil providing Paleogene mammal faunas, between the older Tiupampan Maria Farinha Formation of the Parnaíba Basin and the Itaboraian Itaboraí Formation of the Itaboraí Basin in Rio de Janeiro State, and the younger Tinguirirican Entre-Córregos Formation of the Aiuruoca Basin and the Deseadan Tremembé Formation of the Taubaté Basin.
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Location of Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean. This is a list of amphibians and reptiles found on the islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis, a two- island nation in the Caribbean Lesser Antilles. The islands are separated by a narrow strait that is only 3.2 km wide and 15 m deep, and thus the two islands have very similar faunas.
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Canis latrans harriscrookiCanis latrans harriscrooki, Shuler Museum of Paleontology, Southern Methodist University, Texas. (Slaughter, 1961)Slaughter, B.H. (1961) A new coyote in the Late Pleistocene of Texas. Journal of Mammalogy 42(4):503–509.Slaughter, B.H., Crook, W.W., Jr., Harris, R.K., Allen, D.C., and Seifert, M. (1962) The Hill- Shuler local faunas of the Upper Trinity River, Dallas and Denton counties, Texas.
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The Naobaogou Formation is a geological formation in the Daqing Mountains of China. It is of Lopingian age. It consists of three rhythms of sediment, labelled members I-III primarily of purple siltstone, but each with a thick basal conglomerate. It is notable for its fossil content, producing one of the most diverse Late Permian vertebrate faunas outside Russia and South Africa.
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As a hypsilophodontid or other basal ornithopod, Phyllodon would have been a bipedal herbivore. Its size has not been estimated, but as most adult hypsilophodonts were long, this genus would probably have been of similar size. Its similarity to the North American Drinker and Nanosaurus is another piece of evidence linking Late Jurassic Portuguese dinosaur faunas with the contemporaneous Morrison Formation dinosaurs.
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Although plant fossils are scarce, these deposits preserve one of the best Tertiary mammal faunas in the world. More than 175 different kinds of animals were preserved from this time. The local mammals included the three-toed horses, pig-like animals, the camel Poebrotherium, Protoceras, rhinoceroses, rodents, saber teeth, tapirs, and titanotheres. Contemporary birds also left behind bones and even an egg.
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About 420 species of birds are known to inhabit Mississippi. Mississippi has one of the richest fish faunas in the United States, with 204 native fish species. Mississippi also has a rich freshwater mussel fauna, with about 90 species in the primary family of native mussels (Unionidae). Several of these species were extirpated during the construction of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.
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Land- mammal ages mostly represent intervals in the Cenozoic; they have not been proposed for the Mesozoic. However, related systems have been proposed for other periods of prehistory. Land-vertebrate "ages" (LVAs) based primarily on dinosaur faunas have been proposed for the late Cretaceous in western North America. The most widely utilized pre-Cenozoic tetrapod biochronology system involves Land vertebrate faunachrons (LVFs).
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Mollusc fossils found in the formation derives from soft- bed environments (contrary to rocky coasts). Evidence from the fossil mollusc fauna of the Tubul Formation seem to indicate that local water temperatures were lower in the Pliocene than today. Waters and mollusc faunas of Magallanes Region are modern-day equivalents of Tubul Formation. The formation was first defined by Egidio Feruglio in 1949.
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Acacia trees lose their leaves in the dry season to conserve moisture, while the baobab stores water in its trunk for the dry season. Many of these savannas are in Africa. Large mammals that have evolved to take advantage of the ample forage typify the biodiversity associated with these habitats. These large mammal faunas are richest in African savannas and grasslands.
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Kirkland, J.I., Britt, B., Burge, D.L., Carpenter, K., Cifelli, R., DeCourten, F., Eaton, J., Hasiotis, S., and Lawton, T. 1997. Lower to Middle Cretaceous dinosaur faunas of the Central Colorado Plateau: a key to understanding 35 million years of tectonics, sedimentology, evolution, and biogeography. Brigham Young University Geology Studies 42:69-103. Earlier layers within the Cedar Mountain Formation contain different nodosaur species.
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Other suggestions for securing this species' future include increased education on biosecurity for the local community, and potentially setting up a captive population. It has also been suggested that backup populations be established on other secure islands, for example Nightingale Island, in case predators reached Inaccessible Island, but this may have negative impacts on the endemic invertebrate faunas of these islands.
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Publishing House, Pyongyang, DPRK. A single species, "Proornis coreae", is known. Fossil remains of this animal, discovered in 1993 in Sinuiju series deposits at Sinuiju-si, consist of a skull, a few cervical vertebrae and a forelimb with feathers. Lee, Yuong-Nam; Yu, Kang-Min & Wood, Craig B. (2001): A review of vertebrate faunas from the Gyeongsang Supergroup (Cretaceous) in South Korea.
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Northern and Southern animal biomes approximately correspond respectively with the Aquillapollenites and Normapolles palynofloral provinces. Dinosaur faunas of the Judithian age may represent the peak of dinosaur evolution in North America. Hadrosaurs were universally the dominant herbivore of the period and comprised more than half of "a typical assemblage." This was also the period of greatest generic diversity among large herbivorous dinosaurs.
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Dinosaur faunas of the Judithian age may represent the peak of dinosaur evolution in North America. Hadrosaurs were universally the dominant herbivore of the period and comprised more than half of "a typical assemblage." This was also the period of greatest generic diversity among large herbivorous dinosaurs. Just in Montana and Southern Alberta were ten genera of ceratopsians and ten genera of hadrosaurs.
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Its age is between about 70 and 66 million years, which puts it in the Maastrichtian, a stage that was named after the formation. The top of the formation has been identified as Danian (early Paleocene) in age. (2020), Type‐Maastrichtian gastropod faunas show rapid ecosystem recovery following the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary catastrophe. Palaeontology, 63: 349-367. doi:10.1111/pala.
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Of the high mountains of Germany, the highest is Zugspitze, with a height of 2,962 metres, more than a thousand metres higher than Feldberg in the Black Forest, Germany's highest mountain outside the Alps. The Northern Limestone Alps represent a depositional environment that was probably located several hundred kilometres to the south, relative to the current position of the rocks. This is reflected in facies as well as in the fossil record: While in the Eastern Alps platform carbonates with tropical faunas were established during the late Middle Triassic, the contemporary, epicontinental, partly terrestrial sequences in Central Europe north of the Alps are rather dominated by siliciclastics and had rather warm temperate faunas. Therefore, especially with regard to the formation of Triassic rocks, a distinction is made between "Germanic facies" (Central Europe north of the Alps) and "Alpine facies" (Northern Limestone Alps).
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Olson's Extinction was a mass extinction that occurred in the early Guadalupian of the Permian period and which predated the Permian–Triassic extinction event. It is named after Everett C. Olson. There was a hiatus and a sudden change in between the early Permian and middle/late Permian faunas. Since then this event has been realized across many groups, including plants, marine invertebrates, and tetrapods.
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Pyritized graptolite fossils are also found. A well-known locality for graptolite fossils in Britain is Abereiddy Bay, Dyfed, Wales, where they occur in rocks from the Ordovician Period. Sites in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, the Lake District and Welsh Borders also yield rich and well-preserved graptolite faunas. A famous graptolite location in Scotland is Dob's Linn with species from the boundary Ordovician-Silurian.
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The earliest sauropterygians appeared about 245 million years ago (Ma), at the start of the Triassic period: the first definite sauropterygian with exact stratigraphic datum lies within the Spathian division of the Olenekian era in South China.Ji Cheng, et al. 2013. "Highly diversified Chaohu fauna (Olenekian, Early Triassic) and sequence of Triassic marine reptile faunas from South China", in Reitner, Joachim et al., eds.
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Andrews, Peter (1990) Owls, Caves, and Fossils: Predation, Preservation, and Accumulation of Small Mammal Bones in Caves, with an Analysis of the Pleistocene Cave Faunas from Westbury-sub- Mendip, Somerset, UK University of Chicago Press. 231 pg. More locally, in Finland, the Ural owl took proportionately more European water voles, overall birds and amphibians than did the eagle-owls but took far fewer gamebirds.
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950614 It is likely a close relative of Gryposaurus, and indeed some have suggested that it falls within the genus Gryposaurus, as the phylogenetic analysis indicates. It is found in a very similar time and place as Gryposaurus monumentensis and Gryposaurus sp. This would challenge the idea of provincialism in Late Cretaceous Laramidian faunas. It may be that Rhinorex lived in more coastal environments than Gryposaurus.
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The concept of the three great evolutionary faunas of marine animals from the Cambrian to the present (that is, the entire Phanerozoic) was introduced by Jack Sepkoski in 1981 using factor analysis of the fossil record. An evolutionary fauna typically displays an increase in biodiversity following a logistic curve followed by extinctions (although the Modern Fauna has not yet exhibited the diminishing part of the curve).
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Argon-argon radiometric dating indicates that the Kaiparowits Formation was deposited between 76.1 and 74.0 million years ago, during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period.Roberts EM, Deino AL, Chan MA (2005) 40Ar/39Ar age of the Kaiparowits Formation, southern Utah, and correlation of contemporaneous Campanian strata and vertebrate faunas along the margin of the Western Interior Basin. Cretaceous Research 26: 307–318.Eaton, J.G., 2002.
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K. Hecht, R.C. Goody and B.M.Hecht, eds) New York, Plenum (1977) Conservation International has designated the Mediterranean basin as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. As to the marine fauna, there are strong affinities and relationships between Mediterranean and Atlantic faunas. The deep-water fauna of the Mediterranean has no distinctive characteristics and is relatively poor. Both are a result of events after the Messinian salinity crisis.
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A brief marine incursion marks the early Oligocene in Europe. There appears to have been a land bridge in the early Oligocene between North America and Europe since the faunas of the two regions are very similar. During the Oligocene, South America was finally detached from Antarctica and drifted north toward North America. It also allowed the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to flow, rapidly cooling the continent.
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Heller's cardinal studies concern the taxonomy, biogeography and reproductive biology of gastropods, of Israel and in general. Natural history of recent and fossil terrestrial and aquatic gastropods in various aspects such as resistance to heat and desiccation. Research results in developing a new bio-geographic methodology for modeling faunal responses to climatic gradients. Heller evolved and set priorities for planning strategies of conservation of terrestrial invertebrate faunas.
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Gastropod shells are the most common macrofossils of Navidad Formation. A large number of these shells are remarkably well preserved. The mollusc fossil fauna of Navidad Formation is remarkably similar fossil faunas of the same age found in Peru. Some of the gastropod species found in Navidad Formation are Miltha vidali, Acanthina katzi, Olivancillaria claneophila, Testallium cepa, Ficus distans, Eucrassatella ponderosa, Glycymeris ibariformis and Glycymeris colchaguensis.
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The environments with such faunas appear to be quieter waters such as lagoons, estuaries and bays. The third and final recognized type of fauna is one dominated by hughmilleriids and stylonurids, generally alongside sandy bottoms and with few other associated fossils. The environments inhabited by this third fauna was likely less marine than the others, possibly representing the more brackish parts of bays and estuaries.
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This restricts the data set to juveniles and miniaturised adults. A more informative data source is the organic microfossils of the Mount Cap formation, Mackenzie Mountains, Canada. This late Early Cambrian assemblage () consists of microscopic fragments of arthropods' cuticle, which is left behind when the rock is dissolved with hydrofluoric acid. The diversity of this assemblage is similar to that of modern crustacean faunas.
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Some studies suggest that there are at least two periods of extinction towards the end of the Triassic, separated by 12 to 17 million years. But arguing against this is a recent study of North American faunas. In the Petrified Forest of northeast Arizona there is a unique sequence of late Carnian-early Norian terrestrial sediments. An analysis in 2002 found no significant change in the paleoenvironment.
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The quarry is managed by Gloucester City Council and is part of Robinswood Hill Country Park. This site contains a significant inland section of Lower Jurassic, Middle Lias strata. There is a complete section of the Upper Pliensbachian Stage. The site has been the centre of research for some time, and particularly its diverse faunas, which have hield some fifty-four species of fossil molluscs.
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The landscape has an extensive composition of rainforests, beaches, woodlands, wetlands, lakes, rivers, forests, and mountains. The Noosa region provides an extremely accommodating landscape for both flora and fauna due to its location in the intersection of the Torresian and Bassian biogeographic regions.Schodde, R., and Calaby, J. H. (1972). The biogeography of the australo-papuan bird and mammal faunas in relation to Torres Strait.
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Early paleontological studies of the Kaibab Limestone firmly established its age on the basis of the abundant fossils that it and the underlying Toroweap Formation contain. On the basis of its brachiopod and siliceous sponge faunas, it was initially concluded that it is Leonardian (approximately Kungurian / latest Early Permian) in age.Griffen, L. R., 1966. Actinocoelia maendria Finks, from the Kaibab Limestone of Northern Arizona.
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The Alcoota fauna is about 8 million years old and has a rich concentration of vertebrate fossils. This makes it especially interesting, as it lies between the older faunas of Kutjamarpu (Southern Australia) and Bullock Creek (Northern Territory) and the younger deposits of Riversleigh (Queensland) and Beaumaris (Victoria). Because of its intermediate age, remote ancestors of the well-studied Australian megafauna as well as of some existing forms can be recognised.
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In southern North America, little changed in the transition from the Judithian to the Edmontonian. However, the northern biome experienced a general trend in reduction of centrosaurines, with leaving Pachyrhinosaurus as one of the few surviving species. Likewise among lambeosaurs, only the single genus Hypacrosaurus remained. Inland faunas of the age are distinguished by a Saurolophus-Anchiceratops association while more coastal areas were characterized by Pachyrhinosaurus and Edmontosaurus.
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Eurasia and North America were many times connected by the Bering land bridge, and have very similar mammal and bird faunas, with many Eurasian species having moved into North America, and fewer North American species having moved into Eurasia (many zoologists consider the Palearctic and Nearctic to be a single Holarctic realm).C.B.Cox, P.D.Moore, Biogeography: An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach. Wiley-Blackwell, 2005 See also List of extinct animals of Asia.
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Anantharaman, G. P. Wilson, D. C. Das Sarma and W. A. Clemens. 2006. A possible Late Cretaceous "haramiyidan" from India. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26(2):488-490Ashok Sahni, New evidence for palaeogeographic intercontinental Gondwana relationships based on Late Cretaceous-Earliest Palaeocene coastal faunas from peninsular India, Washington DC American Geophysical Union Geophysical Monograph Series 01/1987; 41:207-218. DOI: 10.1029/GM041p0207), extending their range to the Early Cretaceous.
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Volaticotherini was a relatively widespread and long-lived clade, with occurrences known from the Toarcian of South America, Oxfordian of China, and Berriasian of Morocco. The presence of volaticotherins in Gondwana is unusual, as they are among the few known Gondwanan triconodonts (and, if aligned with triconodontids, the only representatives of the group in Gondwanna), with Argentoconodon occurring as far back as the Early Jurassic in otherwise australosphenidan dominated faunas.
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Girty was educated at Yale University, where he obtained his PhD in 1894. During his postgraduate year at Stanford University in 1895, he was appointed as a paleontologist, and worked for the United States Geological Survey. He kept that position till he retired 44 years later. He is best known for his research on Permian faunas and for researches of Mississippian and Pennsylvanian invertebrates, in the Western United States.
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Isurus planus, also known as the hooked-tooth mako shark or hooked mako shark, is an extinct lamnid that lived during the Miocene epoch from 23 to 5 million years ago. I. planus can only be found in marine deposits on the Pacific Rim, especially the west coast of the United States.Yabumoto, Y. and Uyeno, T. (1994), Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic fish faunas of Japan. Island Arc, 3: 255–269.
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Large freshwater podocnemidid turtles and dipnoan and elopomorph fishes have also been found from this part of the formation. Cerrejonisuchus may have been a food source for Titanoboa, which would have lived in the same brackish water environment. The vertebrate paleofauna of the Cerrejón Formation was similar to modern neotropical riverine vertebrate faunas. During the Paleocene, river systems would have incised a coastal plain covered by a wet neotropical rainforest.
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"It is more likely that the Peri-Adriatic Platforms worked with temporary continental bridges that connected with Laurasia Gondwana in central Tethis, allowing migration between the two hemispheres and colonization of local coastal habitats." "During the marine transgressions, some of these lands were isolated, implicating genetic Mutations in their terrestrial faunas, with typical biological consequences, as endemism and possible dwarfism".Cristiano Dal Sasso: Dinosaurs of Italy. In: Comptes Rendus Palevol.
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Marine fossils from the Oligocene are rare in North America. There appears to have been a land bridge in the early Oligocene between North America and Europe, since the faunas of the two regions are very similar. Sometime during the Oligocene, South America was finally detached from Antarctica and drifted north towards North America. It also allowed the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to flow, rapidly cooling the Antarctic continent.
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Below this formation are the nearshore deposits of the Virgelle Sandstone. Lithologies, invertebrate faunas, and plant and pollen data support that the Two Medicine Formation was deposited in a seasonal, semi-arid climate with possible rainshadows from the Cordilleran highlands. This region experienced a long dry season and warm temperatures. The extensive red beds and caliche horizons of the upper Two Medicine are evidence of at least seasonally arid conditions.
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The Permian vegetation dominated by Glossopteris in the southern hemisphere ceased to exist. Other groups, such as Actinopterygii, appear to have been less affected by this extinction event and body size was not a selective factor during the extinction event. Different patterns of recovery are evident on land and in the sea. Early Triassic faunas lacked biodiversity and were relatively homogeneous due to the effects of the extinction.
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Neochoerus aesopi was a relatively large rodent species native to North America until their extinction about 12,000 years ago, being closely related to modern capybaras (genus Hydrochoerus). It was part of the subfamily Hydrochoerinae. Fossils of it have been found in U.S. states such as Florida and South Carolina.Additions to the Pleistocene Mammal Faunas of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia The species was originally outlined in 1853.
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Ordovician faunas indicate that most of Svalbard, including Bjørnøya, was part of Laurentia, but Franz Josef Land and Kvitøya (an eastern island of the Svalbard archipelago) most likely became part of Baltica in the Timanide Orogeny. The Taymyr Peninsula, in contrast, never was part of Baltica: southern Taymyr was part of Siberia whilst northern Taymyr and the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago were part of the independent Kara Terrane in the early Palaeozoic.
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The largest concentration of Platystomatidae undoubtedly occurs in the Australasian region, followed closely by the Afrotropical region. The number of genera and species in the Oriental, European,Korneyev V A (2001) A Key to Genera of Palaearctic Platystomatidae (Diptera), with descriptions of a new genus and new species. Entomological Problems (Bratislava), 32(1): 1–16. Nearctic and Neotropical faunas are much more restricted and are summarised in the Regional Catalogues.
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The Abrahamskraal Formation corresponds with numerous localities abroad. Currently it is considered to correlate chronostratigraphically with the Rio do Rasto Formation from the Paraná Basin in Brazil, the Madumabisa Mudstone Formation of Zambia, the Ocher and Isheevo faunas of Russia, and to the Dashankou fauna from the Xidagou Formation of China. However, correlative dating between the Xidagou Formation and the Abrahamskraal Formation remains inconsistent and needs further study.
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The extinction of Gastornis is currently unclear. Competition with mammals has often been cited as a possible factor, but Gastornis did occur in faunas dominated by mammals, and did co-exist with several megafaunal forms like pantodonts. Likewise, extreme climatic events like the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) appear to have had little impact. Nonetheless, the extended survival in Europe is thought to coincide with increased isolation of the landmass.
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Off the mainland coast of New Zealand, shelf-edge instability is enhanced in some locations by cold seeps of methane- rich fluids that likewise support chemosynthetic faunas and carbonate concretions. Dominant animals are tube worms of the family Siboglinidae and bivalves of families Vesicomyidae and Mytilidae (Bathymodiolus). Many of its species appear to be endemic. Deep bottom trawling has severely damaged cold seep communities and those ecosystems are threatened.
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The location is apparently a freshwater swamp, and Hershkovitz suggested that O. gorgasi probably occurred throughout the swamp forests in the Río Atrato basin. On Curaçao, it is known from cave faunas at Tafelberg Santa Barbara, Noordkant, Ser'i Kura, and Hermanus. At Tafelberg Santa Barbara, it was found in association with introduced black rats (Rattus rattus), indicating that the population persisted at least until the first European contact in 1499.
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In Cuvier's landmark 1796 paper on living and fossil elephants, he referred to a single catastrophe that destroyed life to be replaced by the current forms. As a result of his studies of extinct mammals, he realized that animals such as Palaeotherium had lived before the time of the mammoths, which led him to write in terms of multiple geological catastrophes that had wiped out a series of successive faunas.
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The presence of the genus in the Ischigualasto Formation is restricted to the earlier strata, becoming completely extinct soon after along with the last of the carnivorous cynodonts in the area. This has been taken as evidence for the gradual replacement of therapsid fauna with the later mainly archosaur-dominated faunas of the Late Triassic. Evidence from the Chañares Formation also seems to support this faunal transition.Romer, A. S. (1969).
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Fossils of Parasuminia are known exclusively from a locality known as Sundyr-1 near the mouth of the Sundyr River (a tributary to the Volga River) in the Mari El Republic of European Russia, and were first discovered in 2009 by an expedition from the Borissiak Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. The site itself was originally discovered by a group of schoolboys in 1997, and the site and its fossils were briefly reported on by A. Yu. Bezerin in 2005 who referred to the site as the "Yul’yaly locality". The site was later renamed Sundyr-1 and interpreted to belong to a new stratigraphic member, the Ustpoldarsa Member, of the Poldarsa Formation. The fossil fauna recovered from Sundyr-1 have been collated into the Sundyr Assemblage Zone, interpreted as representing an intermediate fauna between the older Middle Permian 'dinocephalian faunas' and later 'theriodontian faunas' of the Late Permian.
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He was the first person who stated that cavemen lived in Hungary in the past after examining the chopping tools found in the area surrounding Miskolc. His best known works are Spider Faunas of Hungary, Birds Useful and Birds Harmful and the Book of Hungarian Fishery. Herman was the father of Hungarian palaeolithic research and Hungarian speleology. He initiated the Natural History Notebooks and was its editor for 10 years until 1886.
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The Toarcian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, an age and stage in the Early or Lower Jurassic. It spans the time between 182.7 Ma (million years ago) and 174.1 Ma. It follows the Pliensbachian and is followed by the Aalenian.For a detailed geologic timescale see Gradstein et al. (2004) The Toarcian age began with the Toarcian turnover, the extinction event that sets its fossil faunas apart from the previous Pliensbachian age.
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In his earlier studies of Mediterranean faunas, Higgs had considered an area of 40 km radius as the likely hunting territory from a site. The publications of R.B. Lee and others (Lee and DeVore 1968), in which the behaviour of living hunters had been followed in detail, showed that the majority of forays were of a much lesser extent. For farming societies, the main arable resource was usually at an even lesser distance (Chisholm 1962).
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This work resulted many accomplishments including a biostratigraphic correlation with faunas in Texas and Florida, established that the Miocene mammalian fauna of Panama was entirely of North American affinity, helped to define a circum-Caribbean Miocene zoogeographic province and delineated the southern extent of the North American land mass. These results were published in Science.Whitmore, Frank C. Jr. and R.H. Stewart. 1965. Miocene mammals and Central American seaways. Science 148 (3667): 180-185.
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There are strong affinities and relationships between Mediterranean and Atlantic faunas. The deep-water fauna of the Mediterranean has no distinctive characteristics and is relatively poor. Both are a result of events after the Messinian salinity crisis.C.C.Emig, P.Geistdoerfer, The Mediterranean deep-sea fauna: historical evolution, bathymetric variations and geographical changes, Carnets de Géologie / Notebooks on Geology, 2004 An invasion of Indian Ocean species has begun via the Suez Canal (see Lessepsian migration).
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John Russell Foster (born November 3, 1966) is an American paleontologist. Foster has worked with dinosaur remains from the Late Jurassic of the Colorado Plateau and Rocky Mountains,Foster 2007 as well as working on Cambrian age trilobite faunas in the southwest region of the American west. He named the crocodiliform trace fossil Hatcherichnus sanjuanensis in 1997 and identified the first known occurrence of the theropod trace fossil Hispanosauropusin North America in 2015.
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During his stay in Colombia he met Maria Kluge, a teacher in Bogotá with an interest in Amazonia, marrying her in 1959. During this time he studied the bird faunas of Amazonia and Iran. In close communication with evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr since the early 1960s, Haffer formulated his ideas on the diversification of birds and the effects of barriers. In 1978 Beryl B. Simpson and Haffer published their analysis of speciation patterns in Amazonia.
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Thomas worked as a Supervisor in Geology for many colleges at Cambridge, as well as vacation lecturer, while working toward his M.A. and PhD, which he received in 1928. His study was that of the Upper Carboniferous faunas of Peru, using specimens from the Sedgwick Museum. Thomas was appointed lecturer at Bedford College in 1927-1928. Thomas was appointed to the Department of Geology of the British Museum (Natural History) in 1928.
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Other organisms found in the zone include the gastropod Euomphalopterus, the hyperoartid Jamoytius or the thelodontid Logania. The deposits of the Rootsikula Formation in Saaremaa in which fossils of E. laticauda and E. osiliensis have been found shelter various faunas of eurypterids such as Mixopterus simonsi, Strobilopterus laticeps and Eysyslopterus patteni. Fossil remains of indeterminate osteostracids and thelodontids have also been found."Eurypterid-Associated Biota of the Rootsikula Horizon, Saaremaa, Estonia: Rootsikula, Estonia".
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Taxonomic diversity increased manifold; the total number of marine orders doubled, and families tripled. In addition to a diversification, the event also marked an increase in the complexity of both organisms and food webs. Taxa began to have localized ranges, with different faunas at different parts of the globe. Communities in reefs and deeper water began to take on a character of their own, becoming more clearly distinct from other marine ecosystems.
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In the wake of the extinction event, the ecological structure of present-day biosphere evolved from the stock of surviving taxa. In the sea, the "Modern Evolutionary Fauna" became dominant over elements of the "Palaeozoic Evolutionary Fauna". Typical taxa of shelly benthic faunas were now bivalves, snails, sea urchins and Malacostraca, whereas bony fishes and marine reptiles diversified in the pelagic zone. On land, dinosaurs and mammals arose in the course of the Triassic.
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In Lake Baikal, it coexists with endemic related species of flatworm in the shallows, its first record in Asia and a rare example of the Palearctic and Baikalian faunas coming into contact with each other. It is one of several flatworms more familiar from marine or brackish water habitats that have appeared in the Konin Lakes in central Poland since two power stations started discharging water into the lakes, raising their temperature markedly.
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The Litopterna occupied ecological roles as browsers and grazers similar to perissodactyl and artiodactyl hoofed mammals in Laurasia. Litopterns were common and varied in early faunas and persisted, in decreasing variety, into the Pleistocene. Early forms were originally classified by European and North American paleontologists as closely related to condylarths, believed to be the order that gave rise to modern hoofed mammals. Litopterns were seen as persisting condylarths, primitive mammals that survived in isolation.
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"A critical reassessment of the Cretaceous non-avian dinosaur faunas of Australia and New Zealand." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 27(3): 138A. With the discovery of Australovenator, which had a similar metacarpal, Rapator was recognized as a probable megaraptoran. In fact, Australovenator and Rapator differ only in some small details of the bone and may be synonyms, though Agnolin and colleagues in 2010 considered Rapator a dubious genus (nomen dubium) due to its fragmentary nature.
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They first appeared in the Early Paleocene, undergoing numerous speciation events during the Paleocene, and Eocene. Mesonychids fared very poorly at the close of the Eocene epoch, with only one genus, Mongolestes, surviving into the Early Oligocene epoch. Restoration of Mesonyx Mesonychids probably originated in Asia, where the most primitive mesonychid, Yangtanglestes, is known from the early Paleocene. They were also most diverse in Asia where they occur in all major Paleocene faunas.
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Ogygopsis is a genus of trilobite from the Cambrian of Antarctica and North America, specifically the Burgess Shale. It is the most common fossil in the Mt. Stephen fossil beds there, but rare in other Cambrian faunas. Its major characteristics are a prominent glabella with eye ridges, lack of pleural spines, a large spineless pygidium about as long as the thorax or cephalon, and its length: up to 12 cm.Coppold, Murray and Wayne Powell (2006).
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Sungai Muntoh's dense rainforest is home to a huge variety of flora and faunas, including many endangered species. This includes tigers, crocodiles, wild boars and lizards. Rare types of blue- headed centipedes and the highly venomous colorful scorpions are found in Sungai Muntoh as well. A colorful peacock-like long-tailed flying creature about 2 ft tall was a usual sighting too, until illegal deforestation took place in less than a decade ago.
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Under the leadership of David Harrison (James's younger son), the Institute increasingly focused on the study and conservation of mammals. Conservation initiatives were concentrated in Arabia and scientific publications were primarily concerned with the Old World tropics and subtropics. More recently, the Institute has been involved in research, training and scientific expeditions to East Africa, the Indian Subcontinent and South-East Asia. It also researches the Tertiary and Quaternary UK mammal faunas.
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Science fiction authors who wrote after Wells often used fictional creatures in the same vein, but most such imaginary faunas were small and not very developed. A four-armed "Green Martian" riding a "throat" from Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom, a fictional version of the planet Mars. Illustration by James Allen St. John (1920). Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote in the early 20th century, can like Wells be considered an early speculative evolution author.
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Within the sediments with a Kirtlandian age, two local faunas, the Hunter Wash local fauna, and the Willow Wash local fauna, have been identified. The currently accepted date of the Kirtlandian is 74.8 to 72.8 million years ago. The lithology of the Kirtlandian formations are made up of mostly a combination of coal beds. The Fruitland Formation consists entirely of them, and one fifth of all rocks of the Kirtland Formation are a coal.
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Alternatively, murids may have entered Australia already differentiated into various groups. This potential is, however, limited by the total absence of rodents in the late Miocene Alcoota and Ongeva Local Faunas of the Northern Territory. Currently there is no evidence or scientific method to test these alternative scenarios. Seven species of native Australian rodent have become extinct and several others have significantly declined in numbers since the settlement of Europeans in Australia.
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While the dinosaur fauna of the lower and middle sections Two Medicine was apparently diverse, the quality of preservation was low and few of these remains can be referred to individual species. The middle Two Medicine is a better source of fossils, but still poor overall. This makes it difficult to argue that these sections of the formation preserve distinct faunas. The upper portion of the formation is more diverse and preserves better quality fossils.
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These other theropods, however, were recovered in sediments that were Oxfordian in age. This rich paleofauna also included pterosaurs like Sericipterus, ornithischians like Jiangjunosaurus and Yinlong and the sauropods Bellusaurus, Klamelisaurus, Tienshanosaurus and Mamenchisaurus. Aorun was probably a predator of small lizards and mammals. Aorun is the seventh thropod, and oldest coelurosaur known from the Shishugou Formation, which is considered one of the most phylogenetically and trophically diverse middle to late Jurassic theropod faunas.
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While the dinosaur fauna of the lower and middle sections Two Medicine was apparently diverse, the quality of preservation was low and few of these remains can be referred to individual species. The middle Two Medicine is a better source of fossils, but still poor overall. This makes it difficult to argue that these sections of the formation preserve distinct faunas. The upper portion of the formation is more diverse and preserves better quality fossils.
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Massetognathus faunas from the middle to upper Triassic is best documented in the Santa Maria Formation in Brazil and the Chañares Formation in western Argentina. Chañares fauna was dominated by herbivorous small to medium-sized taxa. In a trophic reconstruction of the environment, 55% of the specimens were herbivorous and 45% were faunivorous. All the herbivores are therapsids, and the most abundant by far is Massetognathus, representing 83.7% of all herbivorous specimens.
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Oryzomys antillarum, also known as the Jamaican rice rat,Goldman, 1918, p. 44; Turvey and Helgen, 2008 is an extinct rodent of Jamaica. A member of the genus Oryzomys within the family Cricetidae, it is similar to O. couesi of mainland Central America, from where it may have dispersed to its island during the last glacial period. O. antillarum is common in subfossil cave faunas and is also known from three specimens collected live in the 19th century.
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Brighton to Newhaven Cliffs provides the best and most extensive exposure of an important chronological fossil site in England. The gentle folding and the ease of access to the cliff exposures make this an important collecting site for faunas of the upper Santonian and lower Campanian. It is an increasingly important reference section for the Upper Cretaceous. Black Rock is a key for the study of Quaternary Stratigraphy and has attracted scientific interest for over 150 years.
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Kilbuchophylliid corals from the Ordovician (Caradoc) of Pomeroy, Co. Tyrone: implications for coral phylogeny and for movement on the Southern Uplands Fault. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences 88 (for 1997), 117–26. have been systematically described. Based on the brachiopod faunas, the Bardahessiagh Formation has been interpreted as deposited in a transgressive regime, below storm-wave base environments, peaking in the second unit, with the presence of typical Sericoidea association (Candela 2001, 2006).
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Then erosion set in, shaping more resistant rock into ridges and cutting valleys into weaker ones. The area is dominated by dolomite and highly erodible limestone, making caves numerous. The region has great habitat diversity and supports an especially diverse fish fauna, including the Upper Clinch River, which holds one of the most diverse fish faunas in North America.Vernon and Cathy Summerlin, Longstreet Highroad Guide to the Tennessee Mountains Published (print): 1999, Published (Web): January, 2003, .
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Members of the Hyperiidea are all planktonic and marine. Many are symbionts of gelatinous animals, including salps, medusae, siphonophores, colonial radiolarians and ctenophores, and most hyperiids are associated with gelatinous animals during some part of their life cycle. Some 1,900 species, or 20% of the total amphipod diversity, live in fresh water or other non-marine waters. Notably rich endemic amphipod faunas are found in the ancient Lake Baikal and waters of the Caspian Sea basin.
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The sediments are mainly epicontinental deposits of lacustrine character, as well as limestones, marls and dolomites with marine or littoral faunas. The basin was under tension during this period and as a result long horsts and graben structures of different subsidence rates were created following more or less the trend of the Variscan fractures. Its northern side is rimmed by the relatively stable Aquitanian shelf. The basin probably is caused by crustal thinning infiltrating from the Atlantic domain.
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The epibenthic sled is a device that trawls across the surface of the sea floor occasionally digging into the bottom sediment. It collects benthic fish and invertebrates. Along with a mesh net to collect the specimens, there is a front door that opens when traveling along the sea floor and closes as the sled is brought up through the water column. An Epibenthic sled is an instrument designed to collect benthic and benthopelagic faunas from the deep sea.
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The Bouguetia and phillipsiana beds of the upper Middle Inferior Oolite are confined to a very limited outcrop on Cleeve Common. These units, which have distinctive fossil faunas of bivalves, gastropods and brachiopods, are only visible at Rolling Bank Quarry. These outcrops are thus unique and are considered the only examples of part of the Middle Jurassic, Bajocian, time interval in Britain. The Inferior Oolite hill top of Postlip Warren shows the best example of ridge and trough features.
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Traditionally, pterosaur faunas of the Maastrichtian were assumed to be dominated by azhdarchids, with other pterosaur groups having become extinct earlier on. However, more recent findings suggest a fairly composite pterosaur diversity: at least six ("Nyctosaurus" lamegoi, a Mexican humerus, a Jordan humerus and several taxa from Morocco) nyctosaurs date to this period, as do a few pteranodontids, and Navajodactylus, tentatively assigned to Azhdarchidae, lacks any synapomorphies of the group.Wilton, Mark P. (2013). Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy.
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Pterygotus most typically occurs in ecosystems with diverse eurypterid faunas, P. lanarkensis of the Kip Burn Formation of Scotland occurs together with several other eurypterid genera; Slimonia, Eusarcana, Nanahughmilleria, Parastylonurus, Erettopterus and Carcinosoma.R. E. Plotnick. 1999. Habitat of Llandoverian-Lochkovian eurypterids. In A. J. Boucot, J. D. Lawson (eds.), Paleocommunities - a case study from the Silurian and Lower Devonian P. impacatus from Estonia occurs together with genera Erettopterus, Erieopterus, Carcinosoma, Mixopterus, Dolichopterus and Eysyslopterus as well as cephalaspidomorph fishes.
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Macrostomidans are members of a large range of aquatic faunas, ranging from the meiobenthos, epibenthos, to plankton. Moreover, they occur in marine, brackish, and freshwater habitats, and many forms are particularly abundant in the intertidal meiobenthos, where they can be exposed to highly variable environmental conditions. There are also many sub-tidal and a few deep-sea forms. They can be found in all major bodies of water worldwide, and in the freshwater of all continents, except Antarctica.
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Miniopterus zapfei was described by Pierre Mein and Léonard Ginsburg in a 2002 paper on the ages and faunas of the fossil sites of La Grive-Saint-Alban in southeastern France.Mein and Ginsburg, 2002, p. 23 Mein and Ginsburg wrote that it was the second fossil Miniopterus species to be described, after Miniopterus fossilis from Slovakia, but did not mention Miniopterus approximatus from the Pliocene of Poland or Miniopterus tao from the Pleistocene of China.Mein and Ginsburg, 2002, p.
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A common coquí (Eleutherodactylus coqui), arguably the most recognizable species of Puerto Rico's fauna The fauna of Puerto Rico is similar to other island archipelago faunas, with high endemism, and low, skewed taxonomic diversity. Bats are the only extant native terrestrial mammals in Puerto Rico. All other terrestrial mammals in the area were introduced by humans, and include species such as cats, goats, sheep, the small Asian mongoose, and escaped monkeys. Marine mammals include dolphins, manatees, and whales.
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Monkey goby infected with the larvae of nematodes Eustrongylides excisus, Dniester Estuary, Ukraine In the northwestern Black Sea, twelve parasite species are known to infect the monkey goby.Kvach Y. (2005) A comparative analysis of helminth faunas and infection of ten species of gobiid fishes (Actinopterigii: Gobiidae) from the North-Western Black Sea. Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria, 35(2): 103–110. The core of the parasitic fauna are a trio metacercariae composed of Сryptocotyle concavum, Сryptocotyle lingua, and Рygidiopsis genata.
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The only known specimen of Hagryphus was recovered at the Kaiparowits Formation, in southern Utah. Argon-argon radiometric dating indicates that the Kaiparowits Formation was deposited between 76.1 and 74.0 million years ago, during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period.Roberts EM, Deino AL, Chan MA (2005) 40Ar/39Ar age of the Kaiparowits Formation, southern Utah, and correlation of contemporaneous Campanian strata and vertebrate faunas along the margin of the Western Interior Basin. Cretaceous Res 26: 307–318.
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In biostratigraphy, MN 4 is one of the MN zones used to characterize the fossil mammal faunas of the Neogene of Europe. It is preceded by MN 3 and followed by MN 5; together, these three zones form the Orleanian age of the middle Miocene.Mein, 1999, table 2.1 This zone starts within magnetostratigraphic chron C5Dr, at 18 million years ago, and ends within chron C5Cr, at 17.0 million years ago, although some different correlations have been proposed.Steininger, 1999, p.
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17) felt that recognition of the Canadian as a separate system would greatly solve problems in Early Paleozoic stratigraphy. As such, faunas in limestones of Canadian age are uniformly widespread and set off sharply from black shale graptolite facies (Flower 1957) whereas those in the remaining Ordovician are more local in nature and the two facies are more integrated. In common practice (e.g. MLK 1952, Weller 1960) the Canadian has been viewed as the Early, or Lower Ordovician.
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Though the North Atlantic was opening, a land connection appears to have remained between North America and Europe since the faunas of the two regions are very similar. India began its collision with Asia, folding to initiate formation of the Himalayas. It is hypothesized that the Eocene hothouse world was caused by runaway global warming from released methane clathrates deep in the oceans. The clathrates were buried beneath mud that was disturbed as the oceans warmed.
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The general homogeneity of dinosaurian faunas continued into the Middle and Late Jurassic, where most localities had predators consisting of ceratosaurians, spinosauroids, and carnosaurians, and herbivores consisting of stegosaurian ornithischians and large sauropods. Examples of this include the Morrison Formation of North America and Tendaguru Beds of Tanzania. Dinosaurs in China show some differences, with specialized sinraptorid theropods and unusual, long-necked sauropods like Mamenchisaurus. Ankylosaurians and ornithopods were also becoming more common, but prosauropods had become extinct.
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Here she was active in Faculty Women's Group and was Chairman for one year. She also dedicated much of her time to the Geological Museum. Following her dissertation, Stewart focused primarily on Paleozoic faunas of Ohio and in 1937, was the Chairman of the Geology Section of the Ohio Academy of Science. Stewart was also listed as a Member of Sigma Xi, Fellow Paleontological Society, Fellow Geological Society of America, and was listed in Who's Who - Women of America.
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Plate from Edward Donovan's An Epitome of the Natural History of the Insects of China, 1838 Provinces of China The following is a list of all butterflies found in the geographical realm of China divided by families. Temperate North China is located in Central Asia and the Palearctic realm. The rest of China, including the tropical South China (with Hainan, Hong Kong), and Taiwan belong to the Indomalayan realm. In many parts of China the Palearctic and Oriental faunas overlap.
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The Beaverfoot Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Late Ordovician (Ashgill age) to Early Silurian (Llandovery) age. It is present on the western edge of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and Alberta, and the Purcell Mountains of British Columbia. It consists of carbonate rocks, and was named for the Beaverfoot Range at Pedley Pass southeast of Golden, British Columbia by L.D. Burling in 1922. The formation is fossiliferous and is known for its brachiopod faunas.
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The comparative collection is primarily made up of animal specimens, which are complemented by a small inventory of human remains. The faunal inventory consists primarily of European ice age faunas and/or their extant representatives. In addition to large mammals (mammoth, rhino, bison horse), the collection also includes remains of extant smaller mammals and birds. The taphonomic collection includes modern and archaeological materials that exhibit various pathologies and show signatures of specific taphonomic processes and agents, as well as experimentally modified bone.
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The main difference between the Rhynchonelliformea described in the Treatise Part H, revised 2000/2007, and the Articulata of the Treatise part H, 1965, lies in the groups included, their taxonomic positions and arrangements. The Rhynchonelliformea (Articulata revised) is divided into five classes: Obolellata, Kutorginata, Chileata, Strophomenata, and Rhynchonellata. The Strophomenata and Rhynchonellata are found living today; the Rhynchonellata as the major constituent of modern brachiopod faunas, the Stromphomenata as only a minor contributor. The Obolellata, Kutorginata, and Chileata are all extinct.
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The Estonioceratidae are a family of loosely coiled tarphycerids in which the inner side of the whorls, which forms the dorsum, is rounded or flat with no impression, and in which the siphuncle, composed of thick tubular segments, is located ventrally. The Estonioceratidae seem to form a link between the ancestral Bassleroceratidae and the more tightly coiled Tarphyceratidae.Flower, R. H. 1976. Ordovician Cephalopod Faunas and Their Role in Correlation in The Ordovician System: proceedings of a Palaeontological Association symposium, Sept 1974.
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The snail tolerates siltation, thrives in disturbed watersheds, and benefits from high nutrient flows allowing for filamentous green algae growth. It occurs amongst macrophytes and prefers littoral zones in lakes or slow streams with silt and organic matter substrates, but tolerates high flow environments where it can burrow into the sediment.Collier, K. J., R. J. Wilcock and A. S. Meredith. 1998. Influence of substrate type and physico–chemical conditions on macroinvertebrate faunas and biotic indices in some lowland Waikato, New Zealand, streams.
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She would go on to describe separate groups of fossil mammals, and complete faunas. Her extensive work in describing and tracing the genetic lines of many large mammals, based on collections in the Palaeontological Museum at Moscow State University, led to the museum being named for her and her husband in 1926, in recognition of their research. Pavlova was made a professor at Moscow State University in 1919. Pavlova went on her last geological expedition in 1931, to the city of Khvalynsk.
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The specimen IGM 100/50 consists of a partial maxilla, scapulocoracoid and manual ungual, and specimen IGM 100/51 compromises a fragmentary skull with lower jaws and other elements, incomplete ilium, and metatarsals of the right foot. These fossils were found in Outer Mongolia. Iren Dabasu and Bayan Shireh dinosaur faunas are very similar, so it is not surprising that a species of Alectrosaurus would be found there. Furthermore, several partial skeletons found in both Inner and Outer Mongolia might belong to Alectrosaurus.
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The genus contains a small number of species, preferring Neotropical climates.Brown, W. L., Jr. 1973b. A comparison of the Hylean and Congo-West African rain forest ant faunas. Pp. 161-185 in: Meggers, B. J., Ayensu, E. S., Duckworth, W. D. (eds.) Tropical forest ecosystems in Africa and South America: a comparative review. Wash (page 184, Pseudoponera as junior synonym of Pachycondyla (provisional)) Despite being a small genus, the species have a worldwide distribution, where they are found in multiple continents.
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This is a list of dinosaurs whose remains have been recovered from Appalachia. During the Late Cretaceous period, the Western Interior Seaway divided the continent of North America into two landmasses; one in the west named Laramidia and Appalachia in the east. Since they were separated from each other, the dinosaur faunas on each of them were very different. For example, nodosaurs were common in Appalachia, but they were rare in Laramidia, and there were only specialized forms, such as Edmontonia and Panoplosaurus.
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The Lower and Middle Ordovician cephalopod faunas of England and Wales. Monograph of the Palaeontographical Society 623:1-8 Flower in his 1962 discussion of the MichelinoceratidaR. H. Flower. 1962. Notes on the Michelinoceratida; Memoir 10, Part 2; New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Socorro NM. expressed doubt as to the usefulness of this taxon and called attention to the morphologic gradation between the Michelinoceratidae in which cameral deposits are retarded and the Geistonoceratidae in which they are more advanced.
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In biostratigraphy, MN 5 is one of the MN zones used to characterize the fossil mammal faunas of the Neogene of Europe. It is preceded by MN 4 and followed by MN 6 and is part of the Orleanian age of the middle Miocene.Mein, 1999, table 2.1 MN 5 starts within magnetostratigraphic chron C5Cr, at 17.0 million years ago, and ends at the start of chron C5Bn.1r, at 15.0 million years ago, although some different correlations have been proposed.
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Late Canadian (Zones J, K) cephalopod faunas from Southwestern United States. New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources 32:1-56 but reassigned to the Ellesmeroceratidae by Kröger et al. (2007)B. Kröger, M. S. Beresi, and E. Landing. 2007. Early orthoceratoid cephalopods from the Argentine Precordillera (Lower-Middle Ordovician). Journal of Paleontology 81(6):1266-1283 Whether Rioceras is assigned to the Baltoceratidae and therefore to the Orthocerida or to the Ellesmeroceratidae depends on the definition of each.
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In spite of being a basal taeniodont, Schowalteria is fairly derived, perhaps more so than later taenidonts. It shares with them similar speciations towards herbivory and possibly fossoriality, but unlike them it also possesses evidence of transverse (ungulate-like) mastication, making it even more specialised towards processing vegetation. As one of the largest mammals of its time period and a rather specialised herbivore, Schowalteria was a rather spectacular species among the dinosaur-rich faunas of the end of the Cretaceous.
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Shute Shelve Hill, which is formed of Carboniferous Limestone laid down in the Dinantian period about 350 million years ago, rises to above sea level. It is an anticline with younger limestones on the lower slopes. Black Rock Limestone is exposed at several sites but is commonly covered by Burrington Oolite. Picken's Hole at the southern end of Crook Peak is considered to be of importance because of its clear, well-stratified sequence of deposits and faunas, all dating from within the Devensian.
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The Budoš Limestone ("Budos Mountain Limestone") is a geological formation in Montenegro, dating to 179 million years ago, and covering the middle Toarcian stage of the Jurassic Period. It has been considered an important setting in Balkan paleontology, as it represents a terrestrial setting, with abundant plant material.PANTIC, N., GRus1c, A. & SLA01c-TR1FuNov1c, M., 1983: The importance of Mesozoic floras and faunas from intraoceanic carbonate platforms for the interpretation of paleogeographic and geodynamic events in the Tethys. - Boll. Soc. Pal.
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The western margin (modern coordinates) of Laurentia originated during the Neoproterozoic break-up of Rodinia. The North American Cordillera is an accretionary orogen which grew by the progressive addition of allochthonous terranes along this margin from the Late Palaeozoic. Devonian back-arc volcanism reveals how this eastern Panthalassic margin developed into the active margin it still is in the mid-Palaeozoic. Most of the continental fragments, volcanic arcs, and ocean basins added to Laurentia this way contained faunas of Tethyan or Asian affinity.
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Despite its small range, the Ecuadorian hillstar comprises two subspecies. This remarkable case of geographic differentiation has caught the attention of many prominent biologists, among which was Alfred Russel Wallace. In Island Life, Wallace wrote that the ranges of these subspecies were among the most wonderful cases of restricted ranges of any bird.Wallace AR. (1911) Island life : or, the phenomena and causes of insular faunas and floras, including a revision and attempted solution of the problem of geological climates [Internet].
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Trefawr Track, a forestry road north of Cwm-coed-Aeron Farm, Llandovery, Wales, is the location of the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) which marks the boundary between the Rhuddanian and Aeronian stages of the Silurian period on the geologic time scale. The GSSP was ratified in 1984. The boundary is defined as the first appearance of the graptolite Monograptus austerus sequens (the base of the Monograptus triangulatus biozone). The section is primarily mudstone, which yields an abundance of shelly faunas.
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Ascidian faunas of the island chain Isla Canales de Tierra to Coiba, southern Gulf of Chiriqui and south entrance to the Panama Canal, Pacific coast of Panama. (in prep) mangrove and estuarine watersheds,Bowen, J.L. and Ivan Valiela (2008) Using δ15N to Assess Coupling between Watersheds and Estuaries in Temperate and Tropical Regions. Journal of Coastal Research Vol 24:3; pp. 804–813. and the effects of natural and anthropogenic nutrient input on primary production and fisheries along Pacific coastal zones.
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Willowsia platani Entomobrya albocincta Entomobryidae, sometimes called "slender springtails", is a family of springtails characterised by having an enlarged fourth abdominal segment and a well-developed furcula. Species in this family may be heavily scaled and can be very colourful. The scale-less Entomobryidae are commonly caught in pitfall traps around the planet, and also occur in canopy faunas high up in trees (notably Entomobrya nivalis, very common throughout Europe if not the Northern Hemisphere). There are more than 700 described species in Entomobryidae.
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This work made her an early pioneer of archaeozoology, especially in the field of climatic interpretation. Bate also worked alongside the archaeologist Professor Dorothy Garrod in the Caves of Nahal Me’arot, where excavations had commenced in 1928. She was the first to study the faunas of the area, her stated research aim being the reconstruction of the natural history of the Pleistocene (Ice Age) fauna of the Levant region. Being aware of the fossils and the numerous human occupations her study of the Carmel Caves was pioneering.
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The Bardahessiagh Formation is divided into three units, but the summit of the formation is not known. Field evidence indicates that the local top of the formation is characterised by a thrust contact with the Killey Bridge and Tirnaskea Formation (upper Katian and Hirnantian, respectively), exposed south of the Well Field, which lies 650 metres SSW of Craigbardahessiagh. Constraints on the age of the formation is based on the brachiopod faunas and an upper Sandbian to lower Katian age has been proposed.Candela, Y. 2002.
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Despite the difficulties of balancing this job with research, he maintained a steady interest in Cretaceous fish faunas of the Great Artesian Basin and published eleven papers on this topic. The Queensland Museum expanded under his direction; staff employed there increased from 44 to 200. He sought to employ professional staff with science and curatorial backgrounds and help the Museum build visitor numbers by revitalising displays. The Museum purchased life sized models of Triceratops horridus in 1976 and Tyrannosaurs rex in 1978, at his recommendation.
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Goin et al., 2004 The age of the Santa Rosa fauna remains highly uncertain, as the outcrop where the fossils were found cannot easily be placed in a known stratigraphical unit, and the fossils are so distinct from other known fossil faunas that biostratigraphy cannot provide a precise estimate. In a summary of the 2004 volume, Kenneth Campbell tentatively referred Santa Rosa to the Mustersan South American Land Mammal Age (SALMA), which he placed near the Eocene–Oligocene boundary, around 35 million years ago.Campbell, 2004, pp.
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One fossil, Archexyela ipswichensis from Queensland is between 205.6 and 221.5 million years of age, making it among the oldest of all sawfly fossils. More Xyelid fossils have been discovered from the Middle Jurassic and the Cretaceous, but the family was less diverse then than during the Mesozoic and Tertiary. The subfamily Xyelinae were plentiful during these time periods, in which Tertiary faunas were dominated by the tribe Xyelini; these are indicative of a humid and warm climate. The cladogram is based on Schulmeister 2003.
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An investigation of Baltic, Bitterfeld, Scandinavian, and Rovno ambers in 2009 showed over 90% of N. pygmaea specimens in Baltic, Scandinavian and Bitterfeld ambers were alates, while still being a very small component of the ant faunas. In Baltic amber N. pygmaea was between 0.51% and 0.71% of all ants, and in Bitterfeld the species was only 1.26%. In contrast Rovno amber showed a larger percentage at 3.03% and Scandinavian had the highest percentage 3.66%, which was suggested to relate possibly to habitat humidity.
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She described some rock layers as particularly fossiliferous, the shale bands abundant with goniatite faunas and Bivalvia marine and freshwater molluscs. The unfossiliferous shales often contain numerous clay-ironstone bands making conditions intolerable for marine organisms. At most of the fossiliferous levels in the Namurian beds the number of goniatites and Bivalvia are usually very high with the diversity of species low. The richest and most diverse band in the succession at Sliabh an Iarainn, in terms of species present, contains Trilobites, brachiopods, gastropods, echinoids and Bryozoa.
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Based on the age of Titanoceratops, there must have been a five million year ghost lineage leading to Eotriceratops. Titanoceratops supports the idea that late Cretaceous dinosaur faunas were highly endemic, with distinct species found in the Southern Great Plains of New Mexico, and the Northern Great Plains of Montana and Canada. Despite extensive sampling to the north in the Dinosaur Park Formation and Two Medicine Formation, triceratopsins are unknown there. This implies that the triceratopsins originally evolved in the south, then spread north in the Maastrichtian.
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Edmontosaurus was a wide-ranging genus in both time and space. The rock units from which it is known can be divided into two groups by age: the older Horseshoe Canyon and St. Mary River formations, and the younger Frenchman, Hell Creek, and Lance formations. The time span covered by the Horseshoe Canyon Formation and equivalents is also known as Edmontonian, and the time span covered by the younger units is also known as Lancian. The Edmontonian and Lancian time intervals had distinct dinosaur faunas.
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The Japanese eel (Anguilla japonica; Japanese: 日本鰻 nihon'unagi) is a species of anguillid eel found in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam,Vietnam Faunas, vncreatures.net as well as the northern Philippines. Like all the eels of the genus Anguilla and the family Anguillidae, it is catadromous, meaning it spawns in the sea, but lives parts of its life in fresh water. The spawning area of this species is in the North Equatorial Current in the western North Pacific to the west of the Mariana Islands.
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Oceans between continents provide barriers to plant and animal migration. Areas that have become separated tend to develop their own fauna and flora. This is particularly the case for plants and land animals but is also true for shallow water marine species, such as trilobites and brachiopods, although their planktonic larvae mean that they were able to migrate over smaller deep water areas. As oceans narrow before a collision occurs, the faunas start to become mixed again, providing supporting evidence for the closure and its timing.
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The invertebrate fauna of Puerto Rico is high in richness but low in diversity relative to mainland neotropical faunas of similar size and habitat diversity. Puerto Rico, in comparison to other Antillean islands, is the most extensively studied in regards to invertebrates. Aedes aegypti, arguably the best-known mosquito of Puerto Rico and host of the dengue and CHIKV viruses Puerto Rico's insect fauna, similar to the majority of major invertebrate taxa in the archipelago, is considered depauperate when compared to its mainland counterparts.Reagan and Waide, pp.
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The cynodonts were initially represented by Cynognathus and herbivorous gomphodonts. After the discovery of Aleodon among other cynodont specimens such as Chiniquodon, Luangwa, and an unidentified traversodontid in 2009, the Omingonde Formation of Namibia is considered to possess the most diverse fauna of Middle Triassic cynodonts in the world. The discovery also provided researchers a definite link between two faunas in South America and East Africa. From this, the Omingonde formation was also considered the key in “reconstructing the biogeography of Southern Gondwana during the Middle Triassic”.
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Marine Pollution Bulletin, 41, 188-203. doi:10.1016/S0025-326X(00)00110-7 The continental shelf of northern NSW lies at the juncture of tropical and temperate oceanographic regions, and the sea temperature patterns within the Solitary Islands region explains the cross- shelf gradients in biotic patterns. Both tropical and temperate faunas overlap here,Malcolm, H. A., Davies, P. L., Jordan, A., & Smith, S. D. A. (2011). Variation in sea temperature and the East Australian Current in the Solitary Islands region between 2001-2008.
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16 The reference locality used to correlate faunas with this zone is La Romieu (southwestern France); other localities include Artesilla and Buñol in Spain, Tägernaustrasse-Jona in Switzerland, Erkertshofen 2 and Petersbuch 2 in Germany, Belchatov C in Poland, and Aliveri in Greece.Mein, 1999, p. 28 In this zone, the common muroid rodent Democricetodon immigrates into Europe from Asia, followed shortly after by three other muroids: Megacricetodon, Eumyarion, and Anomalomys. Cricetodon, which later also reaches western Europe, is only present in Greece in MN 4 in Europe.
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Other predators included troodontids, oviraptorosaurs, the dromaeosaurid Saurornitholestes and possibly an albertosaurine tyrannosaur (genus currently unknown). The younger Dinosaur Park and Two Medicine Formations had faunas similar to the Oldman, with the Dinosaur Park in particular preserving an unrivaled array of dinosaurs. The albertosaurine Gorgosaurus lived alongside unnamed species of Daspletosaurus in the Dinosaur Park and Upper Two Medicine environments. Young tyrannosaurs may have filled the niches in between adult tyrannosaurs and smaller theropods, which were separated by two orders of magnitude in mass.
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All lacked the elaborate ornamentation of their predecessors, the lambeosaurs. The ankylosaurs had been reduced to down to a handful of species, with ankylosaurs like Anodontosaurus and Ankylosaurus, as well as nodosaurs like Denversaurus, Edmontonia and Glyptodontopelta being the only known survivors. In the south the transition to the Lancian is even more dramatic, which Lehman describes as "the abrupt reemergence of a fauna with a superficially "Jurassic" aspect." These faunas are dominated by Alamosaurus and feature abundant Quetzalcoatlus, Bravoceratops and Ojoceratops in Texas. Saurolophus.
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Following their appearance during the Ordovician, eurypterids became major components of marine faunas during the Silurian, from which the majority of eurypterid species have been described. The Silurian genus Eurypterus accounts for more than 90% of all known eurypterid specimens. Though the group continued to diversify during the subsequent Devonian period, the eurypterids were heavily affected by the Late Devonian extinction event. They declined in numbers and diversity until becoming extinct during the Permian–Triassic extinction event (or sometime shortly before) 251.9 million years ago.
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Shell bed with the bivalve Claraia clarai, a common early Triassic disaster taxon. Marine post-extinction faunas were mostly species-poor and dominated by few disaster species such as the bivalves Claraia and Unionites. Seafloor communities maintained a comparatively low diversity until the end of the Early Triassic, approximately 4 million years after the extinction event. This slow recovery stands in remarkable contrast with the quick recovery seen in nektonic organisms such as ammonoids, which exceeded pre-extinction diversities already two million years after the crisis.
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The area now comprising Greenland-Scandinavia-British Isles began drifting northward in the Late Carboniferous-Early Permian period. A high amount of volatile magmatism caused dikes parallel to the Tornquist Margin which were formative areas of the North Sea – British Isles -Germany – southwest Sweden area. The continents after the Caledonian orogeny (Devonian to Permian times).Differences in fossil faunas astride the red line (the Iapetus suture) show that an ocean was between the two sides before the continents were joined in the supercontinent Pangaea.
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A few geographical influence on the faunas can be observed; erythrosuchids and rhytidosteids are more common in southern exposures while procolophonids and putative "rauisuchids" are more common in the north. The Yarenskian encompasses several svitas (equivalent to geological formations). The most fossiliferous and best-exposed is the Petropavlovskaya Svita, a Fedorovskian-age assemblage in the Cis-Ural region (near the Ural River in Orenburg Oblast). Another productive unit is the Gamskian-age Lipovskaya Formation, which is found near the Don River in Volgograd Oblast.
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It nests in trees. These birds are thought to be the closest living relatives of a group of gigantic (up to tall) carnivorous "terror birds", the phorusrhacids, which are known from fossils from South and North America. Several other related groups, such as the idiornithids and bathornithids were part of Palaeogene faunas in North America and Europe and possibly elsewhere too. However, the fossil record of the seriemas themselves is poor, with two prehistoric species, Chunga incerta Noriega, J.I., Vizcaíno, S.F., & Bargo, M.S. (2009).
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In areas of rocky outcrops, crevices often are utilized, with sticks and other materials preventing free access to the nesting chamber. Molecular data suggest that this species separated from other species of the Neotoma floridana group (Neotoma floridana, Neotoma micropus, Neotoma leucodon) about 155,000 years ago during the Illinoian Stage of the Pleistocene. This is consistent with the oldest known fossils from Slaton, Texas. This rodent is a common fossil in Southwestern cave faunas, with over 20 fossil localities of Pleistocene age known from New Mexico alone.
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The Saint Bathans mammal is a currently unnamed extinct primitive mammal from the Early Miocene (Altonian) of New Zealand. A member of the Saint Bathans Fauna, it is notable for being a late surviving "archaic" mammal species, neither a placental nor a marsupial. It also provides evidence that flightless fully terrestrial mammals did in fact once live in Zealandia. This is in contrast to modern New Zealand, where bats and seals are the only non- introduced mammals in the otherwise bird-dominated terrestrial faunas.
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Peng, G., Ye, Y., Gao, Y., Shu, C.-K., & Jiang, S., 2005, Jurassic Dinosaur Faunas in Zigong, Zigong, Sichuan Scientific and Technological Publishing House, 236 pp The holotype, ZDM 0019, was found in layers of the Upper Shaximiao Formation of Zigong (Sichuan province), which date to the Oxfordian. It consists of a partial skeleton of a probably subadult individual missing the skull (though the lower jaws are present), hind feet, and the tail end. Apart from skeletal elements also plates, spines and scutes have been found.
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The Carnian-Rhaetian Silická Brezová sequence of Slovakia is one of the most well-studied examples of these types of sites. Further south in Hungary, the Csővár Formation has produced not only the typical Norian-Rhaetian Oncodella paucidentata species, but also a new early Norian species, Oncodella mostleri. Oncodella is a component of Norian- Rhaetian conodont faunas in the Julian Alps of Slovenia. In the Triassic, this area was a deep basin (the Slovenian Basin) nowadays represented by the limestone-dominated Slatnik Formation, as well as the Bača Dolomite.
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Moreover, because of the extreme conditions of the vent and seep habitat, certain species may have specific physiological adaptations with interesting results for the biochemical and medical industry. These globally distributed, ephemeral and insular habitats that support endemic faunas offer natural laboratories for studies on dispersal, isolation and evolution. Here, hydrographic and topographic controls on biodiversity and biogeography might be much more readily resolved than in systems where climate and human activity obscure their role. In addition, hydrothermal vents have been suggested to be the habitat of the origin of life.
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Platypleura divisa is even more noteworthy in that it has been collected only from one species of foodplant, the small tree Maytenus heterophylla. The closely related coastal species P. maytenophila shares its strong bond with Maytenus heterophylla, but is distinguishable by a quite different call. The Platypleurini are distributed from the Cape in South Africa, throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar, through India and south East Asia, to Japan. The faunas of West Africa and Madagascar are distinctive, while those of southern and east Africa resemble the Asian group.
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Hypothetical restoration, based on Tafforet's account, subfossils, and related species The Rodrigues starling was large for a starling, being in length. Its body was white or greyish white, with blackish-brown wings, and a yellow bill and legs. Tafforet's complete description of the bird reads as follows: Tafforet was familiar with the fauna of Réunion, where the related hoopoe starling lived. He made several comparisons between the faunas of different locations, so the fact that he did not mention a crest on the Rodrigues starling indicates that it was absent.
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The subfamily Tettigoniinae, sometimes called shield-backed katydids, contains hundreds of species, which are native to the Americas, Australia, southern Africa, Europe (especially Mediterranean), and the Near East. The faunas of the Neotropics and Australia are more closely related to one other than to those of southern Africa, although the three groups are related. They are attributed to an ancient Gondwana fauna which is reflected in the known distribution of the southern African genera, which are in turn related to the North American genera Neduba and Aglaothorax. Many of the common northern European species (e.g.
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Publications included: "Some Didymograplus Species in Lower Graptolite Crime at Kivik's Esperöd" (1880), "Trenne New Graptolisms" (1880), "On The Graptolites Described by Hisinger and the Older Swedish Authors" (1882), "Skåne's Graptolites: I. General overcrowding of the Silurian foundations in Skåne etc. " (1882), "II. Graptolite faunas in the Cordiolaskiffern and Cyrtograptusskiffrarna" (1883) and the "Schichtfolge des Silur in Schonen" in Zeitschrift der Deutschen geologischen Gesellschaft '35' (1883). Other works of stratigraphic and palaeontological content describe the layeredness in Cambodia and Silure at Rostanga (1880) and reports of geological tours on Öland (1882).
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For example, its level fell by between 1975 and 1993.Historic lake levels are graphed in the World Lakes Database . Despite the lack of outflow, in ecology it is often regarded as a part of —or at least associated with— the Nile basin because of its prehistoric connection to this system and the similarities in their aquatic faunas. Due to temperature (its surface water typically is and the mean air temperature of the region generally is similar or slightly higher), aridity and geographic inaccessibility, the lake retains its wild character.
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Because sea shells are much more abundant as fossils, 19th- and early-20th-century geo-scientists used the plentiful and well-differentiatable Mollusca (mollusks) and Brachiopods to identify stratigraphic boundaries. Thus the Calabrian was originally defined as an assemblage of mollusk fossils, most brachiopods being extinct by then. Efforts were then made to find the best representation of that assemblage in a stratigraphic section. By 1948 scientists used the initial appearance of cool- water (northern) invertebrate faunas in Mediterranean marine sediments as the beginning marker for the Calabrian.
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North America about 75 mya, location the discovery of Utahceratops shown The only known specimen of Utahceratops was recovered at the Kaiparowits Formation, in Utah. Argon-argon radiometric dating indicates that the Kaiparowits Formation was deposited between 76.6 and 74.5 million years ago, during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period.Roberts EM, Deino AL, Chan MA (2005) 40Ar/39Ar age of the Kaiparowits Formation, southern Utah, and correlation of contemporaneous Campanian strata and vertebrate faunas along the margin of the Western Interior Basin. Cretaceous Res 26: 307–318.
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The Ancyloceratina were a diverse suborder of ammonite most closely related to the ammonites of order Lytoceratina. They evolved during the Late Jurassic but were not very common until the Cretaceous period, when they rapidly diversified and became one of the most distinctive components of Cretaceous marine faunas. They have been recorded from every continent and many are used as zonal or index fossils. The most distinctive feature of the majority of the Ancyloceratina is the tendency for most of them to have shells that are not regular spirals like most other ammonites.
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The mammoth steppe was dominated in biomass by bison, horse, and the woolly mammoth, and was the center for the evolution of the Pleistocene woolly fauna. Notable carnivores found across the whole range of the mammoth steppe included Panthera spelaea, the wolf Canis lupus and the brown bear Ursus arctos. While the cave hyena was part of mammoth steppe faunas in Europe, it did not extend into the core high latitude north asian range of the biome. On Wrangel Island, the remains of woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, horse, bison and musk ox have been found.
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James S. Albert is a professor of Biology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Dr. Albert is an author of over 100 scientific papers on the evolution and diversity of fishes, and is an expert in the systematics and biodiversity of Neotropical electric fishes (Gymnotiformes). Dr. Albert and his colleagues to date have described 50 new species. Dr. Albert is co-editor with Roberto E. Reis of the book Historical Biogeography of Neotropical Freshwater Fishes, which explores the evolutionary forces underlying the formation of the Amazon and Neotropical fish faunas.
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The Tamiami Formation contains a wide range of mixed carbonate-siliciclastic lithologies and associated faunas. It occurs at or near the land surface in the southern peninsula with numerous named and unnamed members recognized within the Tamiami Formation. Its unevenness indicates that the upper part has been subjected to erosion.Missimer, T.M., 1992, Stratigraphic relationships of sediment facies within the Tamiami Formation of southwestern Florida: Proposed intraformational correlations; in Scott, T.M., and Allmon, W.D., (eds.), The Plio-Pleistocene stratigraphy and paleontology of southern Florida; Florida Geological Survey Special Publication 36, p. 63–92.
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There has been some debateInternational Subcommission on Jurassic Stratigraphy. Newsletter 35/1, December 2008, Edited by Nicol Morton and Stephen Hesselbo over the actual base of the Hettangian stage, and so of the Jurassic system itself. Biostratigraphically, the first appearance of psiloceratid ammonites has been used; but this depends on relatively complete ammonite faunas being present, a problem that makes correlation between sections in different parts of the world difficult. If this biostratigraphical indicator is used, then technically the Lias Group—a lithostratigraphical division—spans the Jurassic / Triassic boundary.
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The Rio do Rasto Formation, where K. sangabrielensis was recovered, ranges from Guadalupian to Lopingian. The Permian specimens that have been found in southern South America only consist of fossil faunas in the Rio do Rasto Formation. The Southern Urals area of European Russia, where K. tarda and K. vetusta were found, have been the recovery site of many amphibians and reptiles from the Upper Permian, dating back to the 1940s. The area with rich deposits consists of 900,000 km2 of land between River Volga in the northwest and Orenburg in the southwest.
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In: Fossilium Catalogus 1. Animalia. 109: 1-94 and Dale Russell in 1967 renamed Struthiomimus currellii Parks 1933 and Struthiomimus ingens Parks 1933 into Ornithomimus currellii and Ornithomimus ingens.Russell, D.A. and Chamney, T.P., 1967, "Notes on the biostratigraphy of dinosaurian and microfossil faunas in the Edmonton Formation (Cretaceous), Alberta", National Museum of Canada Natural History Papers, 35: 1-22 At the same time it was usual that workers referred to the entire ornithomimid material as simply "Struthiomimus".Norman, D., 1985, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, Crescent Books, New York, p.
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Position of the continents after the Caledonian orogeny (Devonian to Permian times). Differences in fossil faunas on both sides of the red line (the Iapetus Suture) are evidence for the existence of an ocean between the two sides in the time before the continents were joined in the supercontinent Pangaea. Figure based on and Southwest of the Iapetus, a volcanic island arc evolved from the early Cambrian (540 million years ago) onward. This volcanic arc was formed above a subduction zone where the oceanic lithosphere of the Iapetus Ocean subducted southward under other oceanic lithosphere.
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Archaeocyatha from loose material at Plunket Point at the head of Beardmore Glacier. In Antarctic geology. Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Antarctic Geology, Capetown, 15–21 September 1963, R.J. Adie, ed., North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam, 609–619. #Hill, D., 1965. Archaeocyatha from Antarctica and a review of the phylum. Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1955–1958, Scientific Reports 10 (Geol. 3), 1–151. #Hill, D., 1965. Determinations of Palaeozoic faunas. Bulletin of the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics, Australia, 71, Appendix 2, 151. #Hill, D. & Jull, R.K., 1965.
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The Lower and Middle Ordovician cephalopod faunas of England and Wales. Monograph of the Palaeontographical Society 623:1-81 Some paleontologists have regarded Bactroceras as an early bactritid because of its spherical apex and ventral siphuncle. However, a more recent study has argued that the shell of Bactroceras has important differences from those of true bactritids. For instance, the first shell chamber of Bactroceras resembles that of other Ordovician orthocerids, such as Archigeisonoceras and Hedstroemoceras: it is about 10 mm in diameter and is short, forming a spherical cap.
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Thin cameral deposits (lining the chambers) are known, which along with the position of the siphuncle and thin connecting rings distinguishes them from the endocerids in which they have been included.Sweet 1964 Nautiloidea -Orthocerida in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part K, Teichert and Moore(eds)Flower 1976. Ordovician Cephalopod Faunas and Their Role in Correlation, in The Ordovician System: proceedings of a Palaeontological Association symposium, Sept 1974 Troedsonnellids first appear high in Lower Ordovician (Cassinian) strata, beginning with Tajaroceras and extend at least through the Whiterock Stage of the Middle Ordovician.Hook and Flower 1977.
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In addition, Keen wrote over seventy-five papers that were published in scholarly journals. One of the first articles she wrote was focused on her documentation of how molluscan faunas reacted to changes at different latitudes due to the gradual cooling of the sea. The study that she published on this subject was valuable to geologists for two main reasons. It helped geologists understand the temperature change of the sea in past times, as well as identifying source areas of sedimentary rocks that had moved to new positions due to continental drift.
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Wallace discussed how that difference affected flora and fauna. He discussed how isolation affected evolution and how that could result in the preservation of classes of animals, such as the lemurs of Madagascar that were remnants of once widespread continental faunas. He extensively discussed how changes of climate, particularly periods of increased glaciation, may have affected the distribution of flora and fauna on some islands, and the first portion of the book discusses possible causes of these great ice ages. Island Life was considered a very important work at the time of its publication.
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As a considerable majority of described eurypterid species are known from the Silurian, particularly the late Silurian, researchers have concluded that the group peaked in diversity and number during this time. Complex eurypterid faunas, compromising several different species in different ecological roles, are typical of the period. All species of Eusarcana described so far occur together with other eurypterid species. E. acrocephalus is known from both the Silurian and the Devonian of the Czech Republic, with a somewhat apparent difference in other fauna depending on the time period.
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It was part of the Fox Canyon and Rexroad Local Faunas, and may have been the ancestor of the living merlins or its close relative. With its age quite certainly pre- dating the split between the Eurasian and North American merlins, it agrees with the idea of the merlin lineage originating in North America, or rather the colonization thereof. After adapting to its ecological niche, ancient merlins would have spread to Eurasia again, with gene flow being interrupted as the Beringia and Greenland regions became icebound in the Quaternary glaciation.
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Some sauropods also evolved tooth batteries, best exemplified by the rebbachisaurid Nigersaurus. The early forms Herrerasaurus (large), Eoraptor (small) and a Plateosaurus skull There were three general dinosaur faunas in the Late Cretaceous. In the northern continents of North America and Asia, the major theropods were tyrannosaurids and various types of smaller maniraptoran theropods, with a predominantly ornithischian herbivore assemblage of hadrosaurids, ceratopsians, ankylosaurids, and pachycephalosaurians. In the southern continents that had made up the now-splitting Gondwana, abelisaurids were the common theropods, and titanosaurian sauropods the common herbivores.
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He became lecturer in geography and biology at the Higher general secondary school on Kungsholmen in Stockholm and associate professor of geology at the University of Stockholm in 1933. He was awarded the title of professor in 1943 and became professor of geology, particularly historical geology at Lund University in 1950. Troedsson research focussed on early paleozoic fossils, stratigraphy and geography, as well as on mesozoic formations in southern Sweden. He also studied Ordovician faunas from Greenland (1926-28) and fossils from Central Asia from the Cambrian and Ordovician (1937).
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Restoration Skeletal elements of Alamosaurus are among the most common Late Cretaceous dinosaur fossils found in the United States Southwest and are now used to define the fauna of that time and place, known as the "Alamosaurus fauna". In the south of Late Cretaceous North America, the transition from the Edmontonian to the Lancian faunal stages is even more dramatic than it was in the north. Thomas M. Lehman describes it as "the abrupt reemergence of a fauna with a superficially 'Jurassic' aspect." These faunas are dominated by Alamosaurus and feature abundant Quetzalcoatlus in Texas.
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The Glypheoidea (containing the glypheoid lobsters), is a group of lobster- like decapod crustaceans which forms an important part of fossil faunas, such as the Solnhofen limestone. These fossils included taxa such as Glyphea (from which the group takes its name), and Mecochirus, mostly with elongated (often semichelate) chelipeds. This group of decapods is a good example of a living fossil, or a lazarus taxon, since until their discovery in the 1970s, the group was considered to have become extinct in the Eocene. The superfamily Glypheoidea comprises five families.
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The Cedar Mountain Formation is proving to contain one of the richest and most diverse Early Cretaceous dinosaur faunas in the world. The discoveries to date have revealed that the origin of some of the later Cretaceous dinosaurs may lie in the Cedar Mountain, but further work is needed to understand the timing and effects the changing position of the North American Plate had on dinosaurian evolution. Also needed is a better understanding of the effects that the changing North American Plate had on the non-dinosaur vertebrates.
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Dinosaurian faunas, which were relatively uniform in character when Pangaea began to break up, became markedly differentiated by the close of the Cretaceous. Biogeography is based on the splitting of an ancestral species by the emplacement of a geographic barrier. Interpretation is limited by a lack of fossil evidence for eastern North America, Madagascar, India, Antarctica and Australia. No unequivocal proof of the biogeographical action on dinosaur species has been obtained, but some authors have outlined centres of origin for many dinosaur groups, multiple dispersal routes, and intervals of geographic isolation.
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Nasutoceratops (back center) with co-existing ceratopsids, deinonychosaurians and Stegoceras The only known specimen of Nasutoceratops was recovered at the Kaiparowits Formation, in southern Utah. Argon-argon radiometric dating indicates that the Kaiparowits Formation was deposited between 76.1 and 74.0 million years ago, during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period.Roberts EM, Deino AL, Chan MA (2005) 40Ar/39Ar age of the Kaiparowits Formation, southern Utah, and correlation of contemporaneous Campanian strata and vertebrate faunas along the margin of the Western Interior Basin. Cretaceous Res 26: 307–318.
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Many dinosaur species in North America during the Late Cretaceous had "remarkably small geographic ranges" despite their large body size and high mobility. Large herbivores like ceratopsians and hadrosaurs exhibited the most obvious endemism, which strongly contrasts with modern mammalian faunas whose large herbivores' ranges "typical[ly] ... span much of a continent." Lehman observes that "it is often the most conspicuous and abundant species with the most restricted distributions." He notes that Corythosaurus and Centrosaurus haven't been discovered outside of southern Alberta even though they are the most abundant Judithian dinosaurs in the region.
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Thomas M. Lehman has observed that Corythosaurus and Centrosaurus haven't been discovered outside of southern Alberta even though they are the most abundant Judithian dinosaurs in the region. Large herbivores like the ceratopsians and hadrosaurs living in North America during the Late Cretaceous had "remarkably small geographic ranges" despite their large body size and high mobility. This restricted distribution strongly contrasts with modern mammalian faunas whose large herbivores' ranges "typical[ly] ... span much of a continent." Another example is Pentaceratops, the only known Judithian ceratopsian from New Mexico.
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The family is known exclusively from fossils preserved in Burmese amber, and combined with the Nemonychidae genera, the Burmese amber fauna is considered one of the richest weevil faunas of the Mesozoic, rivaling Kazakhstan's late Jurassic site at Karatau. The Burmese amber fossils preserve more detail than the compression fossils from Karatau. The amber paleoforest was tropical in temperature, and situated along the tidal boundary of a coastal estuary. The resin from which the amber originated is most likely araucarian, based on both inclusions of wood fragments and spectroscopic analysis.
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He was the author of Traité élémentaire de paléontologie (4 vols. 1844-1846). In the first edition Pictet, while adopting the hypothesis of successive creations of species, admitted that some may have originated through the modification of pre-existing forms. In his second edition (1853–1857) he enters further into the probable transformation of some species, and discusses the independence of certain faunas, which did not appear to have originated from the types which locally preceded them. Pictet was an advocate of progressive creationism, the belief that species were created in successive stages.
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Colleagues encouraged her to write about her collection, and she co-authored two academic papers about graptolites.R. B. Rickards, V. Burns, and J. B. Archer. "The Silurian Sequence at Balbriggan, Co. Dublin," Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 73(1973): 303-316.V. Burns and R. B. Rickards, "Silurian Graptolite Faunas of the Balbriggan Inlier, Counties Dublin and Meath, and the Evolutionary, Stratigraphical, and Structural Significance," Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society 49(1993): 283-291. In 1960 Burns became a research assistant to Robert George Spencer Hudson (1895-1965).
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"Forest snail faunas from Georgian Transcaucasia: patterns of diversity in a Pleistocene refugium". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 102: 239–250 Some relict species of vertebrates are Caucasian parsley frog, Caucasian salamander, Robert's snow vole, and Caucasian grouse, and there are almost entirely endemic groups of animals such as lizards of genus Darevskia. In general, species composition of this refugium is quite distinct and differs from that of the other Western Eurasian refugia. The natural landscape is one of mixed forest, with substantial areas of rocky ground above the treeline.
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The juvenile teeth of O. compressus are longer than wide, have a thinner base, and lack serrations, similar to O. platypternus teeth. Orthacanthus platypternus from the Craddock Bonebed shark layer in Texas, USA, shows evidence of resorption, and the equivalent of an "enamel pearl." Some of the teeth specimens found at this location show evidence of resorption, which has not been previously observed in other faunas at the same location. Where the superjacent basal tubercle is expected to be resorbed if the teeth were to undergo resorption, the apical button is resorbed instead.
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Bergh, G.D. van den, 1999. The Late Neogene elephantoid-bearing faunas of [Indonesia and their palaeozoogeographic implications; A study of the terrestrial faunal succession of Sulawesi, Flores and Java, including evidence for early hominid dispersal east of Wallace's line, Scripta Geologica 117: 1-419 He puts question marks, “Elephas”, to indicate the uncertain taxonomical position, following Paul Sondaar’s approach of 1984.Sondaar, P.Y., 1984. Faunal evolution and the mammalian biostratigraphy of Java. Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg 69: 219-235. Van den Bergh accepts a possible relation with “Elephas” indonesicus from Ci Pangglosoran near Bumiayu on Java, dated to the same geological period.
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The restored holotype of M. jiangi, on display at the alt= A nearly complete skeleton of a theropod new to science was discovered by Dong Zhiming in 1981, during stratigraphic exploration for the benefit of the oil industry. The fossil was unearthed until 1984. In 1987, before description in the scientific literature, it was referred to in the press as Jiangjunmiaosaurus, an invalid nomen nudum. In 1992 it was mentioned by Dong Zhiming as Monolophosaurus jiangjunmiaoi,Dong, Z., 1992, Dinosaurian Faunas of China, Ocean Press/Springer-Verlag, Beijing/Berlin. 188 pp and in 1993 by Wayne Grady as Monolophosaurus dongi.
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Reconstructed skull and neck It is unclear whether Spinosaurus was primarily a terrestrial predator or a piscivore, as indicated by its elongated jaws, conical teeth and raised nostrils. The hypothesis of spinosaurs as specialized fish eaters has been suggested before by A. J. Charig and A. C. Milner for Baryonyx. They base this on the anatomical similarity with crocodilians and the presence of digestive acid- etched fish scales in the rib cage of the type specimen. Large fish are known from the faunas containing other spinosaurids, including the Mawsonia, in the mid-Cretaceous of northern Africa and Brazil.
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The four amber faunas have been shown to share 17 ant species in common, which make up over 80% of the specimens in amber collections studied for a 2009 paper. Though a large portion of specimens from Scandinavian amber are of species found in the other ambers, the overall fauna found is notably different from the other three. About twenty-four genera with thirty-five species of ants have been identified as inclusions in Scandinavian amber. The fossil was first studied by paleoentomologists Gennady M. Dlussky of the Moscow State University and A. D. Radchenko of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
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Evolution of birds inferred as theropods evolving from the non-avian dinosaurs are represented by the Archaeopteryx (a prehistoric bird) and dinosaurs such as the Deinonychus or the Dromaeosaurus. ;Post- Mesozoic period Post-Mesozoic, representing the last 66 million years, starting with the extinction of a major part of the dinosaurs, is the Tertiary period when reptile, mammals and modern faunas evolved in that order. The Cantabrotherium truyolsi represents the deposit of Llamaquique, in Oviedo. A touch screen display provides a complete history of the last 66 million years of the evolution of the landscape and the ecosystems.
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Two volcanic layers of very fine ash occur, one just below the hominin fossils and one just above; this important feature allows accurate argon–argon dating of adjacent sedimentary layers and their fossils, as reported above. This is valuable "..because the accurate dating of faunas and artefacts of many sites of this general antiquity in Pleistocene Africa has proved notoriously difficult." In this layer have been found early Middle Stone Age (MSA) tools and the remains of Homo sapiens idaltu. Most of the tools are scrapers, cleavers, and various lithic cores; but hand axes, picks and blades are rare.
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Studies suggest that the paleoenvironment of the Two Medicine Formation featured a seasonal, semi-arid climate with possible rainshadows from the Cordilleran highlands. Lithologies, invertebrate faunas, and plant and pollen data suggest that during the Campanian, this region experienced a long dry season and warm temperatures. The extensive red beds and caliche horizons of the upper Two Medicine are evidence of at least seasonally arid conditions. The Two Medicine Formation has produced the remains of oviraptorosaurs, ornithopods, the nodosaur Edmontonia, the ceratopsians Achelousaurus, Brachyceratops, Cerasinops, and Einiosaurus among others, Troodon, the dromaeosaurids Bambiraptor, Dromaeosaurus and Saurornitholestes, and the tyrannosauroids Albertosaurus, Daspletosaurus and Gorgosaurus.
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Opossums were minor components of South American mammal faunas until the late Miocene, when they began to rapidly diversify. Prior to this time the ecological niches presently occupied by opossums were occupied by other groups of metatherians such as paucituberculatans and sparassodonts Large opossums like Didelphis show a pattern of gradually increasing in size over geologic time as sparassodont diversity declined. Several groups of opossums, including Thylophorops, Thylatheridium, Hyperdidelphys, and sparassocynins developed carnivorous adaptations during the late Miocene-Pliocene, prior to the arrival of carnivorans in South America. Most of these groups with the exception of Lutreolina are now extinct.
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Although Europe, Asia, and North America were distinct landmasses during much of the Eocene and Oligocene, they experienced intermittent migration events across the shallow sea separating Europe and Asia, via an ice-free Greenland (Europe and North America), or across Beringia (North America and Asia). The southern continents were much more isolated leading to the unique faunas of Australia, South America, and to a lesser degree Africa. Although the hystricognath rodents may have evolved from an early entodacryan ancestor in Asia, they migrated to Africa soon after. The Phiomorpha represents the clade that evolved as a result.
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Over 400 species of birds have been reported from the region, and the reptile and amphibian faunas are similarly rich. The Konashen COCA forests are also home to countless species of insects, arachnids, and other invertebrates, many of which are still undiscovered or unnamed. The Konashen COCA contains a high level of biological diversity and richness that remains in nearly pristine condition; such places have become rare on earth. This fact has given rise to various non- exploitative, environmentally sustainable industries such as ecotourism, successfully capitalising on the biological wealth of the Konashen COCA with comparatively little enduring impact.
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The overall environment deposition of the Xinminbao Group suggests a clastic- dominated subsidence basin of low-relief in which weak, short-lived lakes repeatedly gave arise to open-land biomes. Suzhousaurus was a relatively large herbivorous component of its ecosystems. The known specimens were recovered from the complex of the Mazongshan Dinosaur Fauna, which is composed by the contemporaneous genera of both Xiagou and Zhonggou formations. During the late Aptian–early Albian eras, a large lake surrounded by narrow hills was likely present in the Mazongshan and Jiuquan areas, allowing dinosaur faunas to travel across areas without geographical barriers.
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The site was formerly called Roundhill Railway Cuttings and lies within the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty near the River Windrush. The site exposures a critical Cotswold section in the Inferior Oolite of the Jurassic period spanning two stages and shows a sequence from the Aalenian Harford Sands and Tilestone of the Lower Inferior Oolite through the Clypeus Grit. Research publications report the site of prime importance in showing one of the few continuous sections through the Middle and Upper Inferior Oolite. This has resulted in a significantly complete set of records of consecutive ammonite faunas.
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Alternatively, the geographical distribution of tropical South American turtles during the Miocene can be explained as a relict of an extensive distribution reached during the Eocene or Oligocene and modified subsequently by the uplifting of the Andes and the changes in the pattern of the main river systems.Cadena & Jaramillo, 2015, p.199 The occurrence of Purussaurus and Mourasuchus in the early Middle Miocene Patajau and Kaitamana beds of the Castilletes Formation represent early records for lineages previously known from younger Laventan and Huayquerian faunas. These records expand the temporal range of high diversity gavialoid-caimanine assemblages into the early Middle Miocene.
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Examples of migrant species in the Americas after the formation of the Isthmus of Panama. Olive green silhouettes denote North American species with South American ancestors; blue silhouettes denote South American species of North American origin. Continents continued to drift, moving from positions possibly as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current locations. South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama during the Pliocene, making possible the Great American Interchange and bringing a nearly complete end to South America's distinctive large marsupial predator and native ungulate faunas.
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Supporting this hypothesis is the suggestion that the orogens have "truncated ends" that can be matched and that both share the commonality of having carbonate platform sediments at what is today their western side. Further, in the mentioned sediments both orogens host similar Olenellid trilobite faunas, something that is not expected to be unless both orogens had some sort of contact. This is because trilobites are unable to cross deep ocean basins. According to this view the Cuyania terrane would be an allochthonous block of Laurentian origin that was left in Gondwana after the continents went apart.
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Several of the finds, including the enigmatic Opabinia and Anomalocaris have some, though not all, features associated with arthropods, and are thus considered stem arthropods. The sorting of the Burgess Shale fauna into various stem groups finally enabled phylogenetic sorting of this enigmatic assemblage and also allowed for identifying velvet worms as the closest living relatives of arthropods. Stem priapulids are other early Cambrian to middle Cambrian faunas, appearing in Chengjiang to Burgess Shale. The genus Ottoia has more or less the same build as modern priapulids, but phylogenetic analysis indicates that it falls outside the crown group, making it a stem priapulid.
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The Pliocene extends from to . During the Pliocene continents continued to drift toward their present positions, moving from positions possibly as far as from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current locations. South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama during the Pliocene, bringing a nearly complete end to South America's distinctive marsupial faunas. The formation of the Isthmus had major consequences on global temperatures, since warm equatorial ocean currents were cut off and an Atlantic cooling cycle began, with cold Arctic and Antarctic waters dropping temperatures in the now-isolated Atlantic Ocean.
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Peter, Joris; Pöllath, Nadja (2002) "Holocene faunas of the Eastern Sahara: zoogeographical and palaeoecological aspects" pp. 34–51 in This crake is a partial migrant, but although it is less skulking than many of its relatives, its movements are complex and poorly studied; the distribution map is therefore largely hypothetical. It is mainly a wet-season breeder, and many birds move away from the equator as soon as the rains provide sufficient grass cover to allow them to breed elsewhere. Southward movement is mainly from November to April, the return north beginning when burning or drought reduces the grass cover again.
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The Deccan Traps are famous for the beds of fossils that have been found between layers of lava. Particularly well known species include the frog Oxyglossus pusillus (Owen) of the Eocene of India and the toothed frog Indobatrachus, an early lineage of modern frogs, which is now placed in the Australian family Myobatrachidae. The Infratrappean Beds and Intertrappean Beds also contain fossil freshwater molluscs.Hartman, J.H., Mohabey, D.M., Bingle, M., Scholz, H., Bajpai, S., and Sharma, R., 2006, Initial survivorship of nonmarine molluscan faunas in end-Cretaceous Deccan intertrappean strata, India: Geological Society of America (annual meeting, Philadelphia) Abstracts with Programs, v.
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The family Apatemyidae has no sister taxa and has faced much disagreement regarding its origins and affinities. Apatemyids are scarce even in the faunas where they are most often discovered, and constructing valid taxonomy is challenging since the specimens are typically retrieved in small sample sizes. Early hypotheses for apatemyid affinities include relations to ungulates and rodents, but the most popular early suggestions were classifying them with Insectivora or assigning them to their own order of Apatotheria. It was later proposed that apatemyids belong to the order Cimolesta, which deemed apatemyids more closely related to carnivores than to rodents.
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The phenomenon of animal species evolving in cache to unusually large size on islands (in comparison to continental relatives) is known as island gigantism or insular gigantism. This may occur due to factors such as relaxed predation pressure, competitive release, or as an adaptation to increased environmental fluctuations on islands. However, giant tortoises are no longer considered to be classic examples of island gigantism, as similarly massive tortoises are now known to have once been widespread. Giant tortoises were formerly common (prior to the Quaternary extinctions) across the Cenozoic faunas of Eurasia, Africa and the Americas.
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Due to its longevity and high number of species, Bathornis spanned across several different types of environment. As a rule of thumb, however, its known range occurred around what is now the Great Plains; this prompted Wetmore to imagine it as a strider in open plains environments: > Geologists, from available evidence, inform its that North America during > the Oligocene was comparatively level with low relief, so that we may > imagine the species here under discussion as coursing over extensive plains. However, more recent analyses conclude that it probably favoured wetland biomes. In either case, Bathornis is found among rich mammalian faunas.
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The Crowder Formation is a geologic formation in the Central and Western Mojave Desert, in northern Los Angeles County and eastern San Bernardino County, in Southern California. Seismo.berkeley.edu: Field Guide to the Punchbowl Fault Zone, at Devil's Punchbowl Los Angeles County Park ; San Andreas Fault Resources; University of California, Berkeley; by Frederick M. Chester; January 1999. Areas where it is exposed include at the bases of the northern San Gabriel Mountains and northwestern San Bernardino Mountains, and in the Cajon Pass between them.San Bernardino County Museum: "Miocene Faunas in the Lower Crowder Formation", by R.E. Reynolds, 1984.
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An Australian multituberculate, Corriebaatar, is known from a single tooth. Indobaatar is known from the Kota Formation of India - then part of eastern Gondwanna - and is the oldest known multituberculate. In the late Cretaceous, multituberculates were widespread and diverse in the northern hemisphere, and possibly across most southern landsmasses as well, making up more than half of the mammal species of typical faunas. Although several lineages became extinct during the faunal turnover at the end of the Cretaceous, multituberculates as a whole managed very successfully to cross the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary and reached their peak of diversity during the Paleocene.
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They were replaced by species arriving from the east, Turolian in character: for example the suid Schizochoerus, the murid Progonomys, the bovids Tragoportax and Graecoryx, the hyaenid Adcrocuta, the felid Paramachairodus, and the suid Microstonyx. (Abstract) The Vallesian was a crucial period for the evolution of the European terrestrial fauna. During the Middle Miocene, the highly diversified mammalian fauna of the European forests were replaced by the faunas of the Late Miocene, adapted to a dry climate and to an open terrain. The beginning of the period is marked by the appearance and dispersal of the early horse Hipparion throughout Eurasia.
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The genus Eurypterus in particular dominated many Silurian eurypterid faunas of Laurentia. Despite its abundance, it appears to not have originated in Laurentia, the earliest records of the genus are from Baltica and Eurypterus was thus likely an invasive genus in Laurentia, albeit one that managed to adapt well to the new habitats. The majority of carcinosomatoid taxa are also known from Laurentia, Baltica and Avalonia. Isolated and fragmentary fossils from the Late Silurian of Vietnam and the Czech Republic show that the terranes of Annamia and Perunica were within the geographical range of the carcinosomatoids.
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Two local faunas are known from the Kirtlandian faunal age. The Hunter Wash local fauna was defined as the vertebrates "obtained from the upper 40 feet of the Fruitland Formation and the lower 55 feet of the lower shale of the Kirtland Shale (now a formation) in Hunter Wash (member)." The Hunter Wash fauna therefore includes all taxa from the Bisti region of the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, and the animals from the Fossil Forest and Ah-shi-sle-pah Wash. The Willow Wash fauna was named for all the fauna of the De-na-zin Member of the Kirtland Formation.
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In the south the transition to the Lancian is even more dramatic, which Lehman describes as "the abrupt reemergence of a fauna with a superficially "Jurassic" aspect." These faunas are dominated by Alamosaurus and feature abundant Quetzalcoatlus in Texas. The extreme changes occurring in the make-up of herbivore communities during the faunal turnover suggests that a change in the ecosystems' flora was "the most immediate cause...though perhaps not the ultimate one." The rapid expansion of land and drying of inland climate accompanying a drop in sea level could explain some of the environmental changes occurring Late Cretaceous western North America.
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The Dinosaur Park Formation can be divided into at least two distinct faunas. The lower part of the formation is characterized by the abundance of Corythosaurus and Centrosaurus. This group of species is replaced higher in the formation by a different ornithischian fauna characterized by the presence of Lambeosaurus and Styracosaurus. The appearance of several new, rare species of ornithischian at the very top of the formation may indicate that a third distinct fauna had replaced the second during the transition into younger, non-Dinosaur Park sediments, at the same time an inland sea transgresses onto land, but there are fewer remains here.
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The Dinosaur Park Formation can be divided into at least two distinct faunas. The lower part of the formation is characterized by the abundance of Corythosaurus and Centrosaurus. This group of species is replaced higher in the formation by a different ornithischian fauna characterized by the presence of Lambeosaurus and Styracosaurus. The appearance of several new, rare species of ornithischian at the very top of the formation may indicate that a third distinct fauna had replaced the second during the transition into younger, non-Dinosaur Park sediments, at the same time an inland sea transgresses onto land, but there are fewer remains here.
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Professor Frederick Zeuner, then Professor of Environmental Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology and one of the founders of zoo-archaeology recommended that she take a degree in zoology before undertaking further study in zooarchaeology. She therefore studied zoology at the Chelsea College of Science and Technology and graduated with a first class Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree. She returned to the Institute of Archaeology to undertake post-graduate study in zooarchaeology under Zeuner. She completed her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1962 with a thesis on "mammalian faunas from sites in India and western Asia".
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Restoration of Plesiadapis tricuspidens The first discovery of Plesiadapis was made by François Louis Paul Gervaise in 1877, who first discovered Plesiadapis tricuspidens in France. The type specimen is MNHN Crl-16, and is a left mandibular fragment dated to the early Eocene epoch. This genus probably arose in North America and colonized Europe on a landbridge via Greenland. Thanks to the abundance of the genus and to its rapid evolution, species of Plesiadapis play an important role in the zonation of Late Paleocene continental sediments and in the correlation of faunas on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Anoplotherium was a relatively large herbivore for Late Eocene Europe, living in typical Headonian faunas alongside groups such as palaeotheres, pachynolophids, creodonts, choeropotamids, xiphonodontids, adapid and omomyid primates, and bear-dogs amongst many others. Anoplotherium may have preferred wooded habitats, with sub-tropical woodland common across much of the genus' range. The dentition of Anoplotherium is selenodont. A 2006 anatomical study by Hooker on specimens from Montmartre, and a near intact skeleton of an immature individual from the Bouldnor Formation of the Isle of Wight, UK, found the skeletal morphology and functionality of Anoplotherium to indicate it was likely capable of bipedal browsing, using its muscular tail for support.
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However, this classification has fallen out of favor, and the Chaomidianzi Formation is disused as a synonym of the Jianshangou Bed of the Yixian Formation. In 2008, Ji et al. argued that these traditional definitions of the Jehol Biota arbitrarily excluded earlier fossil beds that clearly represent the first evolutionary stages of the later faunas, even though lower beds also had representatives of Ephemeropsis and Lycoptera. They argued that the boundaries of the biota should rather be set based on the distinctive large-scale sequences of volcanism which produced the strata, with the upper boundary set at the Shahai and Fuxin formations and the lower boundary at the Zhangjiakou Formation.
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However, retention of primitive traits that identify Colombophis and other members of the superfamily Anilioidea (including features already found in the Cretaceous snake Dinilysia patagonica) indicate that this group is paraphyletic and that for now, Colombophis remains as an Alethinophidia of uncertain classification. Moreover, their remains indicate that the ecosystems of South America from the mid-Miocene were humid tropical environments as reinforces the finding of other reptile faunas of Urumaco, La Venta and Solimões as Paradracaena and Eunectes stirtoni; Colombophis, like Dinilysia, must be adapted to move and feed in semi-aquatic environments. Fossils were also found in the Socorro Formation of Venezuela.
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The youngest haramiyid fossil genus is Avashishta bacharamensis from the Maastrichtian of India. Cretaceous haramiyids are previously known from the Early Cretaceous of Morocco, suggesting that these animals may have survived in gondwannan landmasses as relics; the presence of the similarly aged Cifelliodon in North America suggests that contact between both landmasses remained for a while. With a temporal range of at least 150 million years, they are the longest lived mammaliaform lineage.Ashok Sahni, New evidence for palaeogeographic intercontinental Gondwana relationships based on Late Cretaceous-Earliest Palaeocene coastal faunas from peninsular India, Washington DC American Geophysical Union Geophysical Monograph Series 01/1987; 41:207–218.
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The appearance of ichthyosauromorphs was part of the recovery of marine ecosystems following the devastating Permian–Triassic extinction event. It was commonly believed that marine ecosystems did not recover their full diversity until 5 to 10 million years following the mass extinction, and that marine reptiles recovered more slowly from the extinction than other lineages. However, the discovery of multiple diverse faunas of marine reptiles occurring in the Early Triassic — including Cartorhynchus — subsequently showed that this was not the case. In particular, it appears that ichthyosauriforms first appeared during the Spathian substage of the Olenekian stage and quickly attained high functional diversity in the first million years of their evolution.
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Taxonomic composition of Mediterranean Early Jurassic brachiopod faunas from Hungary: Niche replacement and depth control. Fragmenta Palaeontologica Hungarica, 21, 43–50. On the uppermost Pliensbachian strata there is a series of beds that consists of greenish-gray limestone and marl, which also contain crinoids and brachiopods, being the last unit under the Manganese Ore. The Upper Liassic (Toarcian) sequence is composed mostly by the Úrkút Manganese and the Éplény Limestone (Late Toarcian-Aalenian), and starts with thick bedded, gray, Radiolaria-bearing, argillaceous marl containing several intercalations of manganese carbonate, or rarely, manganese oxides, with the top of the sequence being a brown to purple nodular Limestone with light green spots.
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The faunas and floras of the Early Jurassic were similar worldwide, with conifers adapted for hot weather becoming the common plants; basal sauropodomorphs and theropods were the main constituents of a worldwide dinosaur fauna. The environment of early Jurassic southern Africa has been described as a desert. African Massospondylus was a contemporary of temnospondyli; turtles; a sphenodontia; rauisuchids; early crocodylomorphs; tritylodontid and trithelodontid therapsids; morganucodontid mammals; and dinosaurs including the small theropod Coelophysis rhodesiensis and several genera of early ornithischians, such as Lesothosaurus and the heterodontosaurids Abrictosaurus, Heterodontosaurus, Lycorhinus and Pegomastax. Until recently, Massospondylus was regarded as the only known sauropodomorph from the Upper Elliot Formation.
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Puncture wounds on fossil poraspid fish attributed to the related pterygotid Jaekelopterus demonstrate that pterygotids would have been capable of preying on armored fish such as pteraspidomorphs and placoderms. The deposits that yielded the fossils of P. siemiradzkii have also yielded fossils of Eurypterus and several genera of pteraspidomorph fish; Larnovaspis, Phialaspis, Corvaspis and Podolaspis. Five species of Pterygotus have been discovered in deposits of Silurian age in the Welsh Borderland, P. ludensis, P. arcuatus, P. grandidentatus, P. lightbodyi and P. denticulatus. The Welsh Borderland preserves one of the more extensive eurypterid faunas known, with the exact genera and species depending on the precise time.
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Herbivorous dinosaurs from the Porto Novo Member include, among others, the sauropods Dinheirosaurus and Zby, as well as the stegosaur Miragaia. During the Late Jurassic, Europe had just been separated from North America by the still narrow Atlantic Ocean, and Portugal, as part of the Iberian Peninsula, was still separated from other parts of Europe. According to Mateus and colleagues, the similarity between the Portuguese and North American theropod faunas indicates the presence of a temporary land bridge, allowing for faunal interchange. Malafaia and colleagues, however, argued for a more complex scenario, as other groups, such as sauropods, turtles, and crocodiles, show clearly different species compositions in Portugal and North America.
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Purgatorius coming out a tree Postcanine dentition of P. unio is documented by 13 dentulous, fragmentary mandibles, a fragmentary maxillary and more than 50 isolated teeth from Garbani Locality 80 km west of Purgatory Hill. P. ceratops is represented by an isolated lower molar found at Harbicht Hill, McCone County. The report of the occurrence of Purgatorius in the Late Cretaceous was based on an isolated, worn molar found in a channel filling that contains early Puercan fossils. It is also abundantly represented in Pu 2-3 local faunas in the northern Western interior, suggesting that it came into the area between 64.75 and 64.11 Mya.
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Bunostegos was part of a distinct paleofauna that existed in what is now Niger during the Late Permian. Other Gondwanan paleofaunas are known from the Karoo Basin of South Africa, Luangwa Basin of Zambia, and Ruhuhu Basin of Tanzania. These faunas are all quite similar to each other, implying that there were few biogeographic barriers to prevent faunal interchanges between these basins. In addition to Bunostegos, the Moradi Formation has yielded fossils of two very basal temnospondyl amphibians (Saharastega and Nigerpeton) that share more in common with temnospondyls from the Carboniferous and Early Permian than with contemporary forms, and the unusually large captorhinid reptile Moradisaurus.
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During the Cenozoic, North America was periodically connected to Eurasia via Beringia, allowing repeated migrations back and forth to unite the faunas of the two continents. Eurasia was connected in turn to Africa, which contributed further to the species that made their way to North America. South America, though, was connected only to Antarctica and Australia, two much smaller and less hospitable continents, and only in the early Cenozoic. Moreover, this land connection does not seem to have carried much traffic (apparently no mammals other than marsupials and perhaps a few monotremes ever migrated by this route), particularly in the direction of South America.
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Between 1912 and 1916, Gidley excavated the Cumberland Bone Cave, where 41 genera of mammals were found, about 16 per cent of which are extinct. Numerous excellent skulls and enough bones to reconstruct skeletons for a number of the species were present. Skeletons of the Pleistocene cave bear and an extinct saber-toothed cat from the Bone Cave are on permanent exhibit in the Ice Age Mammal exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Many of the fossilized bones date from 200,000 years ago. The Cumberland Bone cave represents one of the finest Pleistocene-era faunas known from eastern North America.
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The fossils include the world's oldest known in-situ brachiopod shell beds, some of the earliest- known rugose corals in the geological record, and (in the overlying Malongulli Formation) one of the most diverse deep-water sponge faunas ever recorded. Many genera and species of fossils are unique to the area. Many of the fossils are found in the rocks forming Fossil Hill, comprising spectacularly exposed dipping strata spanning a period of just over one million years. Fossils have also been described from the limestone on the adjacent Dunhill Bluff and Trilobite Hill, and from the siltstones and interbedded limestones between Trilobite Hill and Coppermine Creek.
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Because the definition of a Lazarus taxon is ambiguous, some like R. B. Rickards, do not agree with the existence of a Lazarus taxon. Rickards and Wright questioned the usefulness of the concept of a Lazarus taxon. They wrote in "Lazarus taxa, refugia and relict faunas: evidence from graptolites" that anyone could argue that any gap in the fossil record could potentially be considered a Lazarus effect because the duration required for the Lazarus effect is not defined. They believed accurate plotting of biodiversity changes and species abundance through time, coupled with an appraisal of their palaeobiogeography was more important than using this title to categorize species.
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Robert Latzel (28 October 1845 – 15 December 1919) was an Austrian myriapodologist and entomologist who published a series of pioneering works on millipedes, centipedes, and allies. His collection of myriapod specimens, today housed in the Natural History Museum of Vienna, includes many type specimens. His monographs on the myriapods of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were the first comprehensive treatments of the large region's centipede and millipede faunas. He named nearly 130 taxa of millipedes (1 genus, 2 subgenera, 69 species and 56 variations) and over 40 centipede groups (2 genera, 29 species and 12 variations), as well as four taxa each of pauropods and symphylans.
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S.C. Hook & R.H. Flower 1977. Late Canadian (Zones J, K) Cephalopod Faunas from Southwestern United States; Memoir 32, New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Socorro, NM Empty siphuncled forms, the vacuosiphonate, gave rise to the Michelinoceratidae, commonly known as the Orthoceratidae, which has its beginning in the lower Cassinian stage in the latter part of the Lower Ordovician. Rod bearing forms gave rise to the Troedsonnellidae with early members, Buttsoceras and Tajaroceras found in the upper Cassinian. The Baltoceratidae and Orthoceratidae both have a spherical apex that lacks a cicatrix, and similar, two-layered thin connecting rings which clearly places the Baltoceratidae in the Orthocerida as well.
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The only known fossil of Trapalcotherium was found at Cerro Tortuga in Río Negro Province, southern Argentina. This locality is in the Allen Formation, one of three formations (rock units) that have yielded Late Cretaceous gondwanathere fossils from Argentina (the others are the Los Alamitos and La Colonia Formations). All three are probably about equally old, from the Maastrichtian (latest Cretaceous, about 71–66 million years ago, mya) and perhaps partly the Campanian (84–71 mya). The mammals from the Allen Formation are known from seven teeth, six of which represent four species of dryolestoids—a group of primitive mammals that dominates the Late Cretaceous mammalian faunas of Argentina.
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The Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) is a species of eagle-owl that resides in much of Eurasia. It is also called the European eagle-owl and in Europe, it is occasionally abbreviated to just the eagle-owl.Andrews, P. (1990). Owls, caves and fossils: predation, preservation and accumulation of small mammal bones in caves, with an analysis of the Pleistocene cave faunas from Westbury-sub- Mendip, Somerset, UK. University of Chicago Press. It is one of the largest species of owl, and females can grow to a total length of 75 cm (30 in), with a wingspan of 188 cm (6 ft 2 in), males being slightly smaller.
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Prototherids were medium to large animals that evolved adaptations for fast running, and occupied a variety of niches that elsewhere were filled by animals such as goats and antelopes, mouse deer, and horses. Macrauchenids were large to very large animals with long necks; they evolved retracted nasal openings, indicating that a number of their species likely had a muscular upper lip or short trunk. They likely filled roles in the environment similar to camels, giraffes, sivatheres, and browsing rhinoceroses on other continents. Many types of litopterns were abundant in South American faunas, all ate plants, and the group reached its maximum diversity in the late Miocene.
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The oldest layer, known as the Yellow Cat Member, contains Gastonia, while the intermediate Poison Strip and Ruby Ranch Members contain remains which may belong to Sauropelta. The Mussentuchit, which is the youngest member of the Cedar Mountain, contains only Animantarx. While there is still a lot of exploration left to be done, this division of nodosaur species corresponds with that of other dinosaur groups and provides support for the hypothesis of three separate faunas in the Cedar Mountain Formation. The Mussentuchit fauna includes many taxa which may be of Asian origin and suggests a dispersal event may have occurred from Asia into North America around this time.
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Skin impression of AMNH 5427 Thomas M. Lehman has observed that Centrosaurus fossils haven't been found outside of southern Alberta even though they are among the most abundant Judithian dinosaurs in the region. Large herbivores like the ceratopsians living in North America during the Late Cretaceous had "remarkably small geographic ranges" despite their large body size and high mobility. This restricted distribution strongly contrasts with modern mammalian faunas whose large herbivores' ranges "typical[ly] ... span much of a continent."Lehman, T. M., 2001, Late Cretaceous dinosaur provinciality: In: Mesozoic Vertebrate Life, edited by Tanke, D. H., and Carpenter, K., Indiana University Press, pp. 310-328.
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In Wales, geological sites range from quarries to rocky outcrops and massive sea-cliffs. 30% of SSSIs in Wales are notified for geological and geomorphological features. This stream section provides valuable information of dense turbidite/shale sequence, demonstrating the base of the member and good sections in the underlying Pibwr mudstones, which shows trilobite faunas representative of major ecological changes related to water depth and oxygenation around 500 million years ago. Trilobites are the fossilized remains of a new extinct group of sea-living arthropods, which have been recorded from this site and helped geologists understand conditions of the sea bed during the accumulation of sediment.
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Carcinosoma also prominently occurs together with pterygotid eurypterids. In the fossil deposits of the Welsh Borderland, examples of Carcinosoma occur together with representatives of the pterygotid genera Erettopterus and Pterygotus over a period of millions of years (though other eurypterids, such as Salteropterus, Dolichopterus, Hughmilleria, Eurypterus, Marsupipterus, Mixopterus, Parahughmilleria, Slimonia, Tarsopterella and Stylonurus are also present in lesser numbers). Other types of late Silurian eurypterid faunas include one dominated by the Eurypteridae. When genera such as Erieopterus or Eurypterus occur in great numbers other genera and families are more rare, though groups such as dolichopterids, carcinosomatids and pterygotids tend to occur in small numbers.
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Together with its close relatives, Hughmilleria dominated the communities in brackish and fresh water, while Pterygotus and Eurypterus dominated marine environments. The Silurian deposits of the Pittsford Shale Member in which fossils of H. socialis have been found shelter various faunas of eurypterids, including Mixopterus multispinosus, Erettoperus osiliensis, Eurypterus pittsfordensis and Carcinosoma spiniferus, among others. Fossils from other organisms were also found, such as the crustacean Ceratiocaris and the ostracod Leperditia. Geological features of the formation, such as the friable and calcareous mudstone, the argillaceous dolomite and the lithology and associated biota suggests that the environment was marginal marine, very shallow and probably brackish.
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They were also most diverse in Asia, where they occur in all major Paleocene faunas. Since other predators, such as creodonts and Carnivora, were either rare or absent in these animal communities, mesonychids most likely dominated the large predator niche in the Paleocene of eastern Asia. One genus, Dissacus, had successfully spread to Europe and North America by the early Paleocene. Dissacus was a jackal-sized predator that has been found all over the Northern Hemisphere, but species of a closely related or identical genus, Ankalagon, from the early to middle Paleocene of New Mexico, were far larger, growing to the size of a bear.
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Genoways et al., 1998 The faunas of islands outside Koopman's Line are similar to those of the adjacent mainland, though usually smaller; in contrast, the region inside Koopman's Line harbors relatively few species shared with the mainland and many of its species belong to endemic genera, subfamilies, and even families. Excluding bats, nearly 90% of the mammals of the Caribbean faunal region have gone extinct since the late Pleistocene,Morgan and Woods, 1986, p. 167 including all the sloths and monkeys, the unique insectivore Nesophontes, two of four species of solenodon, and a variety of rodents including all giant hutias, leaving only a few hutia species extant.
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Loomis' specialty was in the millipedes of Central America and the Caribbean, and over his career he named more than 500 species, at least 127 new genera, 2 new subfamilies, and 9 new families, including Messicobolidae, Tingupidae, and Tridontomidae, with only a few taxa named with co-authors. He produced 64 scientific papers on arthropods and 50 on millipedes. The eminent myriapodologist Richard L. Hoffman wrote of Loomis: "(H)is monographs on the faunas of Hispaniola (1936) and Panama (1964) stand out as oases in a desert of chaotic short descriptive papers. His 1968 checklist of the Mesamerican species is beyond praise for its fundamental reference value." p.
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Gerrothorax, the last known plagiosaurid, has been found in rocks which are probably (but not certainly) Rhaetian, while a capitosaur humerus was found in Rhaetian-age deposits in 2018. Therefore, plagiosaurids and capitosaurs were likely victims of an extinction at the very end of the Triassic, while most other temnospondyls were already extinct. Reptile extinction at the end of the Triassic is poorly understood, but phytosaurs (such as this Redondasaurus) went from abundant to extinct by the end of the Rhaetian. Terrestrial reptile faunas were dominated by archosauromorphs during the Triassic, particularly phytosaurs and members of Pseudosuchia (the reptile lineage which leads to modern crocodilians).
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There were (very numerous) local faunas for dragonflies (synopses), appendices to travel works, phylogenetic and morphological notes. Selys met and began a collaboration with Hermann August Hagen in 1845; They jointly produced the Revue and two monographs. Hagen also aided work on the Synopses and sometimes Selys is given as the author in Kirby's catalogue when Hagen is (in many such instances it is clearly stated by Selys that he had never seen the insects and that Hagen was the author). Selys is the properly attributed author of well over 1,000 species, an enormous number compared to Hagen and more than half of known species.
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U. mirabilis is known from two isolated fossils, the holotype and paratype, both of which were housed in the collections of the Zoological Museum of the University of Copenhagen. The fossils are of two complete adult males which have been preserved as inclusions in transparent chunks of Scandinavian amber, also known as Danish amber, found in Denmark. Scandinavian amber is thought to be similar in age to Baltic, Bitterfeld and Rovno ambers, being approximately late Eocene in age. The four amber faunas have been shown to share 17 ant species in common, which make up over 80% of the specimens in amber collections studied for a 2009 paper.
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Cretomerobius disjunctus is known from the holotype specimen found in the Aptian age Bon–Tsagan site, one of the richest insect fossil locations in Mongolia. Bon Tsagan preserves lacustrian sediments of a mountain lake. The genus and type species were first described by Alexandr G. Ponomarenko in a 1992 paper on the fossil Neuroptera faunas of Mongolia, who named the species C. "distinctus", and which was later amended to C. disjunctus as a lapsus calami. The second species originally assigned to the genus, C. wehri, was described from a single mostly complete forewing which was preserved as a compression-impression fossil preserved in shale.
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Coria and Salgado suggested that the convergent evolution of gigantism in theropods could have been linked to common conditions in their environments or ecosystems. Sereno and colleagues found that the presence of carcharodontosaurids in Africa (Carcharodontosaurus), North America (Acrocanthosaurus), and South America (Giganotosaurus), showed the group had a transcontinental distribution by the Early Cretaceous period. Dispersal routes between the northern and southern continents appear to have been severed by ocean barriers in the Late Cretaceous, which led to more distinct, provincial faunas, by preventing exchange. Previously, it was thought that the Cretaceous world was biogeographically separated, with the northern continents being dominated by tyrannosaurids, South America by abelisaurids, and Africa by carcharodontosaurids.
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Microscopic analysis of the rock (petrology) is also sometimes useful in confirming that a given segment of rock is from a particular age. Originally, faunal stages were only defined regionally; however, as additional stratigraphic and geochonologic tools were developed, stages were defined over broader and broader areas. More recently, the adjective "faunal" has been dropped as regional and global correlations of rock sequences have become relatively certain and there is less need for faunal labels to define the age of formations. A tendency developed to use European and, to a lesser extent, Asian stage names for the same time period worldwide, even though the faunas in other regions often had little in common with the stage as originally defined.
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Uquiasaurus is an extinct genus of iguanian lizards represented by the type species Uquiasaurus heptanodonta from the Late Pliocene of Argentina. Uquiasaurus was first described in 2012 on the basis of isolated snout and jaw bones within the Uquía Formation, the namesake of the genus. These bones were preserved in a midden of predatory bird pellets and are part of a microvertebrate assemblage that includes the bones of rodents, marsupials, frogs, birds, and other lizards, one of the few to document the mixing of North and South American faunas during the Great American Interchange. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that Uquiasaurus is part of a clade (evolutionary grouping) of iguanians that includes the living families Liolaemidae, Leiocephalidae, and Tropiduridae.
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Dundry Main Road South Quarry is a 0.7 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest near the village of East Dundry, because of the number of fossils in the inferior oolite. The Main Road Quarry exposes a fine section in the Middle and Upper Inferior Oolite, with the rocks lying stratigraphically below them visible at Barns Batch Spinney. The former characterised by a typically southern English-Normandy fauna, including the rich ammonite occurrences of the "Brown iron-shot", and the latter by contrasting faunas of Cotswold aspect. This contrast is direct evidence for movements of the Mendip Axis in Middle Jurassic times, making this an outstanding site for its bearing on studies of palaeogeography.
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A taxonomic database is a database created to hold information related to biological taxa - for example groups of organisms organized by species name or other taxonomic identifier - for efficient data management and information retrieval as required. Today, taxonomic databases are routinely used for the automated construction of biological checklists such as floras and faunas, both for print publication and online; to underpin the operation of web based species information systems; as a part of biological collection management (for example in museums and herbaria); as well as providing, in some cases, the taxon management component of broader science or biology information systems. They are also a fundamental contribution to the discipline of biodiversity informatics.
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Typical dinosaur faunas of the Lancian formations where Edmontosaurus annectens has been found also included the hypsilophodont Thescelosaurus, the rare ceratopsid Torosaurus, the pachycephalosaurid Pachycephalosaurus, the ankylosaurid Ankylosaurus, and the theropods Ornithomimus, Pectinodon, Acheroraptor, Dakotaraptor, and Tyrannosaurus. The Hell Creek Formation is well exposed in the badlands in the vicinity of Fort Peck Reservoir. The Hell Creek Formation, as typified by exposures in the Fort Peck area of Montana, has been interpreted as a flat forested floodplain, with a relatively dry subtropical climate that supported a variety of plants ranging from angiosperm trees, to conifers such as bald cypress, to ferns and ginkgos. The coastline was hundreds of kilometers or miles to the east.
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The presence of Bergisuchus in Europe has been regarded as evidence for a connection between the faunas from South America and Europe in the early Eocene, as other Cenozoic sebecosuchians are mostly known from South America. This link has been supported by the presence of other South American lineages contemporaneous with Bergisuchus in the Messel pit, including purported phorusrhacid birds and herpetotheriid marsupials. Eocene European ecosystems containing sebecosuchians like Bergisuchus have been compared to those of later South America, with predator guilds composed of mammals, phorusrhacids and sebecosuchians, supporting this affinity. Furthermore, Bergisuchus and Iberosuchus do not appear to be closely related to the Cretaceous sebecosuchian Doratodon, which was found across Europe during the Late Cretaceous.
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The only other fossil assemblage that shows similarities with the Moradi assemblage is that of the Ikakern Formation in Morocco, which includes a late-surviving species of the lepospondyl amphibian Diplocaulus, an unnamed large captorhinid, and the pareiasaur Arganaceras. Studies of the sediments of the Moradi Formation show that the region was extremely arid during the Late Permian but had a shallow groundwater table that could support plant and animal life. Climate models of the Late Permian suggest that this arid region extended across much of central Pangaea. The Moradi Formation may have been a refugium for many tetrapods that were once diverse earlier in the Permian but had been replaced elsewhere on the supercontinent by new tetrapod faunas.
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Armenoceras is derived from Wutinoceras through a thinning of the connecting rings and a simplification of the endosiphuncular canal system. The earliest Armenoceras known comes from the lower Whiterock equivalent in northern China and Korea but is unknown in North America until the end of the Middle Ordovician when it appears in Red River faunas. Worldwide, in addition to east Asia and North America including Greenland, Armenoceras has been found in northern Europe, Russia, and Australia. Armenoceras is thought to have given rise to Nybyoceras in the Chazyan (Flower 1968), although the reverse was earlier suggested in Teichert (1964), and to Selkirkoceras in the Eden-Red River Stage in the Upper Ordovician.
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Eusthenodon is attributed to being just one of many cosmopolitan genera within the "Old Red Sandstone" fish faunas of the Upper Devonian. As a result, it has been hypothesized that diversification of Eusthenodon and other morphologically similar tristichopterids were not restricted by biogeographical barriers and were instead limited only by their individual ecologies and mobility. Most of the Eusthenodon remains found at these globally distributed localities consisted largely of cranial elements and largely not known from complete skeletons. Consequently, the majority of available literature covering Eusthenodon primarily focus on the intricacies of the bones associated with the skull in order to investigate the genus and while others draw conclusions from the known characters of Tristichopteridae.
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Most springtails are small and difficult to see by casual observation, but one springtail, the so- called snow flea (Hypogastrura nivicola), is readily observed on warm winter days when it is active and its dark color contrasts sharply with a background of snow. In addition, a few species routinely climb trees and form a dominant component of canopy faunas, where they may be collected by beating or insecticide fogging. These tend to be the larger (>2 mm) species, mainly in the genera Entomobrya and Orchesella, though the densities on a per square meter basis are typically 1–2 orders of magnitude lower than soil populations of the same species. In temperate regions, a few species (e.g.
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Additional genera include Nybyoceras and Selkirkoceras, respectively, from the upper Middle and Upper Ordovician, and Monocyrtoceras, Elrodoceras, and Megadiscoceras from the Silurian, The Armenoceratidae, Armenoceras, Nybyoceras, and Selkirkoceras, first appear in North America in the diverse cephalopod Redriveran faunas of the early Upper Ordovician but are no longer found during that stage in Asia. Selkirkoceras is a large armenocerid from the Upper Ordovician with a blunt, flattened, somewhat breviconic shell. Among the Silurian genera, Elrodoceras has a large shell with the apical part slightly curved, otherwise is straight, and a siphuncle that is narrower than in Armenoceras. Monocyrtoceras has a siphuncle like that of Elrodoceras, but the entire shell is gently and evenly curved.
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His more detailed researches related to the Jurassic and Cretaceous ammonites and to the Tertiary freshwater Mollusca; and in these studies he sought to trace the descent of the species. He dealt also with the zones of climate during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, and endeavoured to show that the equatorial marine fauna differed from that of the two temperate zones, and the latter from that of the arctic zone, much as the faunas of similar zones differ from each other in the present day; see his Über klimatische Zonen während der Jura und Kreidezeit (Denkschr. K. Akad. Wiss. Wien, 1883); he was author also of Erdgeschichte (2 vols, 1887); and Die Stämme des Thierreiches (vol.
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Small azhdarchoid pterosaurs were also present in the Campanian. This suggests that late Cretaceous pterosaur faunas were far more diverse than previously thought, possibly not even having declined significantly from the early Cretaceous. Small-sized pterosaur species apparently were present in the Csehbánya Formation, indicating a higher diversity of Late Cretaceous pterosaurs than previously accounted for. The recent findings of a small cat- sized adult azhdarchid further indicate that small pterosaurs from the Late Cretaceous might actually have simply been rarely preserved in the fossil record, helped by the fact that there is a strong bias against terrestrial small sized vertebrates such as juvenile dinosaurs, and that their diversity might actually have been much larger than previously thought.
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While Hughmilleria lived in brackish and fresh water communities, Herefordopterus was present in a benthic (at the lowest level of water) environment near an intertidal sandy shore and intertidal sandy mudflat environments. The Silurian deposits of the Pittsford Shale Member in which fossils of Hughmilleria socialis have been found shelter various faunas of eurypterids, including Mixopterus multispinosus, Erettoperus osiliensis, Eurypterus pittsfordensis and Carcinosoma spiniferus, among others. In the other hand, the Late Silurian of Herefordshire, where most of the fossils of Herefordopterus have been discovered, was home to a wide array of different eurypterids, like Erettopterus gigas, Eurypterus cephalaspis, Nanahughmilleria pygmaea, Marsupipterus sculpturatus, Salteropterus abbreviatus and potentially Slimonia (depending on the identity of S. stylops).
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Although the two species of Azendohsaurus are known from disparate locations in North Africa and Madagascar, during the Middle to Late Triassic these regions were connected as part of the supercontinent Pangaea. Because of this, the two regions share broadly similar faunas, as well as sharing some with other regions of the globe at the time. For example, the cynodonts in Madagascar are similar to those also found in South America, and the Moroccan temnospondyls may be related to those found in eastern North America. The climate was hot and dry at this time, but with evidence suggesting higher levels of rainfall during the Carnian, interrupting the increasing aridity trend and creating wetter environments around the globe.
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The results are published in the impressive report The Danish Ingolf-Expedition (1899–1942, 5550 pages and 333 plates). The most significant results were the demonstration of two different bottom faunas separated by the Wyville Thomson Ridge south of the Faroe Islands and the systematic difference in temperature of the water at the sea floor between the north and south side of the ridge; and the very large number of small crustaceans collected by means of H.C. Hansen's method of filtering the bottom mud with fine silk gauze rather than a metal sieve. A very large number of species of micro-crustaceans were thus described for the first time based on the material collected by the Ingolf expedition.
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Arrhinoceratops was by Parks placed within the Ceratopsia (this name is Ancient Greek for "horned faces"), a group of herbivorous dinosaurs with parrot-like beaks which thrived in North America and Asia during the Cretaceous Period, which ended roughly 66 million years ago. In 1930 Lori Russell refined this to the Ceratopsidae.L.S. Russell, 1930, "Upper Cretaceous dinosaur faunas of North America", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 69(4): 133-159 Tyson concluded it was closely related to Torosaurus, probably even its direct ancestor."Arrhinoceratops." In: Dodson, Peter & Britt, Brooks & Carpenter, Kenneth & Forster, Catherine A. & Gillette, David D. & Norell, Mark A. & Olshevsky, George & Parrish, J. Michael & Weishampel, David B. The Age of Dinosaurs.
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Leg bones of Eolambia – femur (A-F), tibia (G-L), fibula (M-N) Kirkland, Cifelli, and colleagues noted that the fauna of the Mussentuchit – iguanodonts, pachycephalosaurs, and ceratopsians – bears strong similarities to contemporary Asian faunas. They proposed that Eolambia was part of an influx of Asian dinosaurs into North America during the Cenomanian, which supplanted the earlier low-diversity native fauna. This hypothesis is supported by the close relationship between Eolambia and either Probactrosaurus or Fukuisaurus, which have respectively been recovered by the phylogenies of Head and Sues & Averianov. However, the results of Horner and colleagues, Prieto-Márquez, and McDonald and colleagues, which consider the North American Protohadros to be the closest relative of Eolambia, contradict this hypothesis.
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The early Palaeozoic eastern margin is better preserved south of the polar region (65 °N) where shallow-water sediments can be found in the western Urals whilst the eastern Urals are characterised by deep-water deposits. The oldest known mid-ocean hydrothermal vent in the south-central part of the Urals clearly delimits the eastern extent. The straightness of the mountain chain is the result of continuous strike-slip movements during the Late Carboniferous to Early Permian (300–290 Ma). Baltic endemic faunas from the Early Ordovician have been found in Kazakhstan near the southern end of the eastern margin, or the triple junction between Baltica, the Mangyshlak Terrane, and the accretionary Altaids.
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The extinction of multituberculates has been a topic of controversy for several decades. After at least 88 million years of dominance over most mammalian assemblies, multituberculates reached the peak of their diversity in the early Palaeocene, before gradually declining across the final stages of the epoch and the Eocene, finally disappearing in the early Oligocene (mid-Miocene if gondwanatherians are multituberculates). Traditionally, the extinction of multituberculates has been linked to the rise of rodents (and, to a lesser degree, earlier placental competitors like hyopsodonts and Plesiadapiformes), which supposedly competitively excluded multituberculates from most mammalian faunas. However, the idea that multituberculates were replaced by rodents and other placentals has been criticised by several authors.
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This small raccoon-like animal had powerful limb muscles and a long, robust, and maybe prehensile tail. Capable of both balancing in a tree and digging, it was adapted to both an arboreal and a terrestrial life. Arctocyon primaevus skull Larger animals assigned to arctocyonids spent most of their time on the forest floor, but were probably still able to climb trees. Some genera may have partly taken the role of large predators in Paleocene faunas together with groups now considered related, such as the triisodontids and mesonychids, two families traditionally classified as condylarths, but now assigned to the "predatory ungulate" order Mesonychia (which has been defined as a sister group to carnivores).
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The earliest dinosaur Eoraptor originated during the Carnian, around 230 Ma. The oldest well documented dinosaurian assemblage, in the Ischigualasto Formation of Argentina, is most probably late Carnian in age. In this stage the archosaurs became the dominant faunas in the world, evolving into groups such as the phytosaurs, rhynchosaurs, aetosaurs, and rauisuchians. The first dinosaurs (and the pterosaur Carniadactylus) also appeared in this stage, and though at the time they were small and insignificant, they diversified rapidly and would dominate the fauna for the rest of the Mesozoic. On the other hand, the therapsids, which included the ancestors of mammals, decreased in both size and diversity, and would remain relatively small until the extinction of the dinosaurs.
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As given in W.S.Blatchley's Orthoptera of Northeastern America - with especial reference to the Faunas of Indiana and Florida (1920): > Dark chesnut brown; palpi, legs, edges of pronotum and outer two-thirds of > tegmina yellow. Pronotum longer than broad, narrower than head. Tegmina > nearly twice as long as pronotum, truncate; inner wings usually aborted. > Forceps of male, three-fourths as long as abdomen slender, curved, bent down > ward a little at basal third, becoming again hor-izontal a little before the > tip, a pointed tooth pre-sent at second bend; of female shorter than those > of male, their legs nearly straight, the lower inner edges very finely > crenulate and usually contiguous for most of their length, the tips > incurved.
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However, not all is mutually beneficial: the ants relish the sweet honeydew produced by scale insects which suck the sap of the acacia and therefore protect them as well, effectively providing entry to diseases. The development of myrmecophytism ("ant symbiosis") and spininess in African and New World acacia species was an adaptation to the presence of large faunas of effective browsing mammals. The ants' sting is very painful, causing a lasting burning and throbbing effect. The ants provide vital protection to the bull's-horn acacias day and night, and it has been shown(Janzen 1966, 1967, 1969) that without the ants, Acacia cornigera suffer greater damage from attacking insects and tend to be overgrown by competing plant species.
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He considered Gilmore's two hadrosaurs to be of great importance, something he elaborated on in a short 1980 paper. He described the anatomy of Gilmoreosaurus as "partly iguanodont and partly hadrosaurine" and saw it as the ancestral form of hadrosaurine; Bactrosaurus, likewise, was seen as the ancestral lambeosaur. It was based in part on the two species, as well as on Probactrosaurus, that he concluded that hadrosaurs had originated in Asia. One thing that interested Brett-Surman greatly was the similarity of the Asian fauna to the later fauna of the North American Two Medicine Formation; Gilmore had, in his 1933 paper, made similar comments about nature of Asian and American faunas.
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It is known from three specimens, two of which were previously referred to the Tanzanian dicynodont Angonisaurus. The separation of Ufudocyclops from Angonisaurus indicates that the Middle Triassic fauna of the Beaufort Group in South Africa was part of a larger shared fauna with those of the Manda Beds in Tanzania, as was previously supposed, and suggests that they were separated as more localised faunas, possibly by geographic barriers or in time. Ufudocyclops then would have been a unique part of the uppermost Cynognathus Assemblage Zone in South Africa. It is also the oldest known member of the family Stahleckeriidae, and implies that the family was already diversifying in the Middle Triassic alongside other kannemeyeriiforms, not just in the Late Triassic after other families died out.
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The expansion of the spotted tilapia species in Australia has potential adverse effects on the native fish faunas that currently exist in Australia. Since they tend to become the dominant fish where they live, their expansion into Australia could be harmful to the other existing fish populations. Another way in which spotted tilapia have become a pest in Australia is that they have been found living in the cooling pondage of the Hazelwood Power Station in Victoria, Australia as well as in the creek just below the pondage. The water temperature in Victoria is far too low for them to survive outside this habitat they have created, however it is a nuisance for the power station that they live here.
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The study of Paleozoic trilobites in the Welsh-English borders by Niles Eldredge was fundamental in formulating and testing punctuated equilibrium as a mechanism of evolution. Reprinted in Identification of the 'Atlantic' and 'Pacific' trilobite faunas in North America and Europe implied the closure of the Iapetus Ocean (producing the Iapetus suture), thus providing important supporting evidence for the theory of continental drift. Trilobites have been important in estimating the rate of speciation during the period known as the Cambrian explosion because they are the most diverse group of metazoans known from the fossil record of the early Cambrian. Trilobites are excellent stratigraphic markers of the Cambrian period: researchers who find trilobites with alimentary prosopon, and a micropygium, have found Early Cambrian strata.
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Anatoliadelphys maasae is an extinct genus of predatory metatherian mammal from the Eocene of Europe. It was an arboreal, cat-sized animal, with powerful crushing jaws similar to those of the modern Tasmanian devil. Although most mammalian predators of the northern hemisphere in this time period were placentals, Europe was an archipelago, and the island landmass now forming Turkey might have been devoid of competing mammalian predators, though this may not matter since other carnivorous metatherians are also known from the Cenozoic in the Northern Hemisphere. Nonetheless, it stands as a reminder that mammalian faunas in the Paleogene of the Northern Hemisphere were more complex than previously thought, and metatherians did not lose their hold as major predators after their success in the Cretaceous.
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Praeovibos was a highly adaptable animal that appears associated with cold tundra (reindeer) and temperate woodland (red deer) faunas alike. During the Mindel glaciation 500,000 years ago, Praeovibos was present in the Kolyma river area in eastern Siberia in association with many Ice Age megafauna that would later coexist with Ovibos, in the Kolyma itself and elsewhere, including wild horses, reindeer, woolly mammoth and stag-moose. It is debated, however, if Praeovibos was directly ancestral to Ovibos, or both genera descended from a common ancestor, since the two occurred together during the middle Pleistocene. Defenders of ancestry from Praeovibos have proposed that Praeovibos evolved into Ovibos in one region during a period of isolation and expanded later, replacing the remaining populations of Praeovibos.
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Another species of hadrosaurids, referable to the genus Hypacrosaurus, coexisted with Maiasaura for some time, as Hypacrosaurus remains have been found lower in the Two Medicine Formation than was earlier known. The discovery of an additional hadrosaurid, Gryposaurus latidens, in the same range as Maiasaura has shown that the border between hypothesized distinct faunas in the upper and middle is less distinct than once thought. There seems to be a major diversification in ornithischian taxa after the appearance of Maiasaura within the Two Medicine Formation. The thorough examination of strata found along the Two Medicine River (which exposes the entire upper half of the Two Medicine Formation) indicates that the apparent diversification was a real event rather than a result of preservational biases.
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Cambrian rocks and faunas, Hüdai area, Taurus Mountains, southwestern Turkey. Bulletin de l´Institut royal des Sciences naturelles de Belgique, Sciences de la Terre, 64: 5-20. Remarks: Hutchinson (1962, p.109) noted that the ‘cranidium’ of A. inarmatus resembles that of the much larger Acontheus acutangulus Angelin, but differs in that the glabella is more strongly expanded frontally, glabellar furrows are weaker, genal spines are lacking (unless a marginal suture had removed the posterolateral border with genal spine) and the glabella and cheeks are punctate rather than smooth. He also credibly remarked that “according to modern usage, these differences are great enough to warrant generic distinction between the two forms” but nevertheless preferred to retain them in the same genus.
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These projects entailed spending time in the Netherlands, Belgium and France to study Palaeolithic mammalian faunas; he was also involved in the analysis of fossils from Pinhole Cave in England. Despite not having had a standard undergraduate academic background, he was permitted by the Senate of the University of the Witwatersrand to register for a Master of Science degree. For his research on Karoo fossils, completed in 1972, he was awarded a doctorate. Having refined the biostratigraphy of the rocks of the Beaufort Group in South Africa, he started a major collecting project in the Triassic and Jurassic rocks of the Elliot and Clarens Formations in South Africa, and published the first biostratigraphic scheme for these lithological units as well.
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Skeleton of Tchoiria Neochoristoderes first appear in the Early Cretaceous of Asia, where they co-exist with other choristodere groups like monjurosuchids and hyphalosaurids. Here, a regional absence of aquatic crocodilians, possibly due to colder temperatures, seems to have opened the ecological niche for these choristoderes to occupy a similar ecological niche.The first record of a long-snouted choristodere (Reptilia, Diapsida) from the Early Cretaceous of Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan Article in Historical Biology 27(5):1-12 · December 2014 R. Matsumoto and S. E. Evans. 2010. Choristoderes and the freshwater assemblages of Laurasia. Journal of Iberian Geology 36(2):253-274 Other than a possible specimen from the Cedar Mountain Formation, a large gap occurs between these Early Cretaceous faunas and the Late Cretaceous ones.
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For example, data from species-level phylogenetic and biogeographic studies tell us that the Amazonian fish fauna accumulated in increments over a period of tens of millions of years, principally by means of allopatric speciation, and in an arena extending over most of the area of tropical South America (Albert & Reis 2011). In other words, unlike some of the well-known insular faunas (Galapagos finches, Hawaiian drosophilid flies, African rift lake cichlids), the species-rich Amazonian ichthyofauna is not the result of recent adaptive radiations.Lovejoy, N. R., S. C. Willis, & J. S. Albert (2010) Molecular signatures of Neogene biogeographic events in the Amazon fish fauna. Pp. 405–417 in Amazonia, Landscape and Species Evolution, 1st edition (Hoorn, C. M. and Wesselingh, F.P., eds.).
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Over the course of his career, Cuvier came to believe there had not been a single catastrophe, but several, resulting in a succession of different faunas. He wrote about these ideas many times, in particular he discussed them in great detail in the preliminary discourse (an introduction) to a collection of his papers, Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupèdes (Researches on quadruped fossil bones), on quadruped fossils published in 1812. Cuvier's own explanation for such a catastrophic event is derived from two different sources, including those from Jean-André Deluc and Déodat de Dolomieu. The former proposed that the continents existing ten millennia ago collapsed, allowing the ocean floors to rise higher than the continental plates and become the continents that now exist today.
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In contrast, a description of the non-primate faunas from the ex situ dumpsite emphasised the largely modern ungulate sample and suggested a more recent depositional age of maximally 1.5 – 0.5 million years ago. The recent analysis by of all the ex-situ fauna from the cave suggests an age later than the first occurrence of Equus in Africa at ~2.3 Ma and an age prior to ~1.8 Ma also undertook a palaeomagnetic analysis of the cave deposits, indicating that the main in-situ fossil beds were older than the end of the Olduvai SubChron at 1.95 Ma and younger than the Gauss-Matuyama Boundary at 2.58 Ma. This suggests an age between 2.3 and 1.95 Ma for the majority of fossils from the site.
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By the Late Permian many other groups of tetrapods had entered that niche, and increased competition among herbivores likely resulted in the eventual extinction of diadectids. Alveusdectes may have been able to persist because the fauna of north China seems to have been isolated from other Laurasian faunas during the Late Permian, meaning that fewer herbivores were competing for the same ecological space. Alveusdectes differs from other diadectids in having a pair of large holes at the back of its skull called suborbital fenestrae, which would have been attachment points for large jaw muscles. Other defining features include a large fourth tooth in the dentary bone of the lower jaw and an elongate Meckelian fenestra positioned near the back of the jaw.
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The (pan)arthropod head problem is a long-standing zoological dispute concerning the segmental composition of the heads of the various arthropod groups, and how they are evolutionarily related to each other. While the dispute has historically centered on the exact make-up of the insect head, it has been widened to include other living arthropods such as the crustaceans and chelicerates; and fossil forms, such as the many arthropods known from exceptionally preserved Cambrian faunas. While the topic has classically been based on insect embryology, in recent years a great deal of developmental molecular data has become available. Dozens of more or less distinct solutions to the problem, dating back to at least 1897, have been published, including several in the 2000s.
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Elephant in Majete Wildlife Reserve Animal life indigenous to Malawi includes mammals such as elephants, hippos, antelopes, buffaloes, big cats, monkeys, rhinos and bats; a great variety of birds including birds of prey, parrots and falcons, waterfowl and large waders, owls and songbirds. Lake Malawi has been described as having one of the richest lake fish faunas in the world, being the home for some 200 mammal, 650 bird, 30+ mollusc, and 5,500+ plant species. The ecoregions include tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands of the miombo woodland, dominated by miombo trees; and the Zambezian and mopane woodlands, characterized by the mopane tree; and also flooded grassland providing grassland and swamp vegetation. There are five national parks, four wildlife and game reserves and two other protected areas in Malawi.
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Through the Ellisdale Fossil Site, a good picture of Appalachia's non-dinosaurian fauna is present. Amidst lissamphibians, there is evidence for sirenids (including the large Habrosaurus), the batrachosauroidid salamander Parrisia, hylids, possible representatives of Eopelobates and Discoglossus, showing close similarities to European faunas, but aside from Habrosaurus (which is also found on Laramidia) there is a high degree of endemism, suggesting no interchanges with other landmasses throughout the Late Cretaceous. There is also a high degree of endemism in regards for its reptilian fauna: among squamates, the teiid Prototeius is exclusive to the landmass, and native representatives of Iguanidae, Helodermatidae, and Necrosauridae. Amidst turtles, which are rather common finds in Appalachia, Adocus, Apalone, and Bothremys are well represented, the latter in particular more common in Appalachian sites than Laramidian ones.
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Paleontological excavations have identified the locations of numerous places where E. scotti occurred. The species was named from Rock Creek, Texas, United States, where multiple skeletons were recovered. A closely related fossil find was made of Equus bautistensis in California; this species appeared closely related, but of a slightly more primitive form than E. scotti. (1921) Extinct Vertebrate Faunas of the Badlands of Bautista Creek and San Timoteo Cañon, Southern California, University of California Press, 424 pages However, E. bautistensis was redefined as a junior synonym of E. scotti in 1998 by paleontologist E. Scott, (1998) Equus scotti from southern California, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 18(3): 76-A who also assigned fossils from the Anza-Borrego Desert in California, tentatively interpreted to represent E. bautistensis, to E. scotti.
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Australia has the greatest number of percichthyid species, where they are represented by the Australian freshwater cods (Maccullochella spp.), which are Murray cod, Mary River cod, eastern freshwater cod, and trout cod, by the Australian freshwater blackfishes (Gadopsis spp.), which are river blackfish and two-spined blackfish, and by the Australian freshwater perches which are golden perch, Macquarie perch (Macquaria spp.), and Australian bass, and estuary perch (Percalates spp.). Several other Australian freshwater species also sit within the family Percichthyidae, while research using mitochondrial DNA suggests the species of the family Nannopercidae are in reality percichthyids, as well. Australia is unique in having a freshwater fish fauna dominated by percichthyids and allied families/species. This in contrast to Europe and Asia, whose fish faunas are dominated by members of the Cyprinidae carp family.
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The Rivers stories take the form of first- person narratives by the protagonist told to companions whose identities vary, but who have in common the fact that their contributions to the conversation are omitted, and must be inferred from those of Rivers. Every story is an anecdote from Rivers' career as a conductor of time safaris to previous eras, both to hunt prehistoric creatures and for scientific purposes (and, occasionally, anti-scientific purposes). In addition to Rivers, the main recurring characters include fellow members of his safari firm, including his partner Chandra Aiyar, camp boss Beauregard Black, and cook Ming. In most instances, the actions of their human clients prove more troublesome than those of the extinct fauna, a theme set in "Faunas", a 1968 poem by de Camp that precedes the stories.
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In the White Sea region of Russia, all three assemblage types have been found in close proximity. This, and the faunas' considerable temporal overlap, makes it unlikely that they represent evolutionary stages or temporally distinct communities. Since they are globally distributed – described on all continents except Antarctica – geographical boundaries do not appear to be a factor; the same fossils are found at all palaeolatitudes (the latitude where the fossil was created, accounting for continental drift) and in separate sedimentary basins. It is most likely that the three assemblages mark organisms adapted to survival in different environments, and that any apparent patterns in diversity or age are in fact an artefact of the few samples that have been discovered – the timeline (right) demonstrates the paucity of Ediacaran fossil-bearing assemblages.
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Conway Morris is based in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge and is best known for his work on the Cambrian explosion the Burgess Shale fossil fauna and similar deposits in China and Greenland. In addition to working in these countries he has undertaken research in Australia, Canada, Mongolia and the United States. His studies on the Burgess Shale-type faunas, as well as the early evolution of skeletons, has encompassed a wide variety of groups, ranging from ctenophores to the earliest vertebrates. His thinking on the significance of the Burgess Shale has evolved and his current interest in evolutionary convergence and its wider significance – the topic of his 2007 Gifford Lectures – was in part spurred by Stephen Jay Gould's arguments for the importance of contingency in the history of life.
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A unique and diverse albeit phylogenetically restricted mammal fauna is known from the Caribbean region. The region—specifically, all islands in the Caribbean Sea (except for small islets close to the continental mainland) and the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Barbados, which are not in the Caribbean Sea but biogeographically belong to the same Caribbean bioregion—has been home to several families found nowhere else, but much of this diversity is now extinct. The bat faunas of much of the Caribbean show similarities that led to the proposal of a distinct Caribbean faunal region, bounded by "Koopman's Line". This region excludes several of the region's islands, including the Grenadines, Grenada, Trinidad, Tobago, and other islands near the American mainland, such as Margarita, Isla Escudo de Veraguas, Rosario Islands, Cozumel, and the Florida Keys.
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Tooth of the large mosasaur Tylosaurus ivoensis, believed to have been the basin's apex predator in the Campanian, exhibited at "Havsdrakarnas hus" in Bromölla, Sweden During the transgressions experienced during the Late Cretaceous, the inland sea within the Kristianstad Basin remained very shallow, and its northern parts formed an archipelago with several low islands and a number of small peninsulas. The climate was subtropical to temperate and local plant life included low-growing flowering plants, ferns, conifers and deciduous trees. Most of the area preserved in the Kristianstad Basin was a shallow marine inner shelf environment, as indicated by the present invertebrate fauna (which has been compared to modern faunas). Most of the water was probably less than 40 meters (131 ft) deep, but there were a wide range of environments present.
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Much of her work identified and correlated fossil corals throughout the western United States and Canada that had never been previously identified. Through these efforts, her impact was large enough that her fossil descriptions can be used to identify index fossils for the Ordovician and Silurian geologic periods. Duncan’s work on Ordovician and Silurian Coral Faunas analyzed the distribution of the corals in western states of America including Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. This work also distinguished and illustrated many corals that had been overlooked or misidentified by previous American publications. Duncan’s publication pointed out and identified the distinctions between Ordovician and Silurian corals. Duncan’s extensive work distinguished the features and distribution of Early, Middle and Late Ordovician as well as Silurian corals.
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The adult, or mature ascoceroid conch, as it is referred to, typically consists of an expanded exogastric brevicone with unique features. The apical end is formed by the septum of truncation which is about three times as thick as normal internal septa and about as thick as the external shell itself. The septa become confined to the dorsal side of the shell resulting in a series of dorsal chambers, or camerae, that provided stabilizing buoyancy. The ascocerid shell, or conch, is the thinnest and most fragile of any orthocone or cyrtocone of comparable size,Rousseau H Flower; p 542, Ordovician Cephalopod Faunas and Their Role in Correlation; in The Ordovician System: proceedings of a Palaeontological Association symposium, University of Wales Press and the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, 1976 which accounts for their rarity.
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Because specimens of Ufudocyclops were once thought to belong to Angonisaurus, it was believed that Subzone C of the Cynognathus AZ and the Manda Beds in Tanzania were part of a larger shared fauna distributed throughout Africa during the Middle Triassic, even extending into Antarctica. However, the distinction of Ufudocyclops from Angonisaurus suggests that dicynodonts in Middle Triassic Africa were more divided than had been assumed, separated into different localised faunas and habitats. It is unclear whether Ufudocyclops was geographically restricted to the Karoo Basin from the Manda Beds, or if the two localities were separated in time, but in either case Ufudocyclops was an endemic part of the Karoo dicynodont fauna. The discovery of Ufudocyclops in the uppermost Karoo Basin also adds to a growing number of stahleckeriids from the Middle Triassic, along with the African genera Zambiasaurus and Sangusaurus.
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As Adelophthalmus in many ways represented the last of its kind, being the final eurypterid to possess swimming appendages, it did not exist in diverse eurypterid faunas such as the ones observed with genera during the Silurian or early Devonian. Instead, the brackish of fresh water environments typically inhabited by Adelophthalmus, such as the Early Permian Madera Formation in New Mexico (where fossils of A. luceroensis have been recovered) preserve other organisms, such as insects, branchiopods, ostracods, millipedes and spirorbid worms. The thin and long paddles of Adelophthalmus indicates that it was a good swimmer, though it is likely that it spent most of its time crawling in the mud. As the chelicerae (frontal appendages) of Adelophthalmus were small, it is most likely that it fed on small organisms, possibly in part the ostracods and branchiopods known from associated fossils.
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Late Triassic (220 Ma) Stratigraphic chart of the Paraná Basin, with the Candelária Formation belonging to the Gondwana II Supersequence The megaregional Paraná Basin, covering an approximate area of in southeastern South America, was in the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic part of Gondwana, the southern latitude area of Pangea. Before the opening of the South Atlantic, a rifting phase that started in the Jurassic, the basin was connected to the basins of present-day southern Africa. The Candelária Formation forms part of the Gondwana II Supersequence representing the onset of continental deposition in the Paraná Basin. The Triassic paleofauna of the Paraná Basin is correlated with the African faunas of the Omingonde Formation of the Waterberg Basin in Namibia, the Molteno Formation of the Karoo Basin in South Africa and the Fremouw Formation of present-day Antarctica.
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These beds soon became well known for containing one of the most diverse Devonian fish faunas in the United States. Most of that material as well as that collected after closure of the quarries now resides in museums, such as the Thomas A. Greene Geological Museum, Milwaukee Public Museum, Weis Earth Science Museum, Field Museum of Natural History, National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian), Museum of Comparative Zoology, and Buffalo Museum of Science. Much of that material has not been studied in depth for over one hundred years, but a preliminary study conducted in 2019 indicates that the Milwaukee Formation contains one of the richest and most diverse biotas in North America coming from a single formation of its age. Other significant, more recent developments in Wisconsin paleontology include the discovery of the Waukesha Biota and Blackberry Hill, as discussed above.
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This is a list of dinosaurs whose remains have been recovered from India or Madagascar. Though widely separated today, India and Madagascar were connected throughout much of the Mesozoic and shared similar dinosaur faunas, distinct from what has been found on other modern African and Asian landmasses. The Indian fossil record of dinosaurs is good, with fossils coming from the entire Mesozoic era – starting with the Triassic period (a geological period that started 251.9 million years ago and continued till 201.3 million years ago), to the Jurassic period (201 million years ago to 145 million years ago) and Cretaceous period (from 145 million years ago to 66 million years ago), when globally all non-avian dinosaurs and 65 per cent of all life became extinct. Madagascar also preserves various unique dinosaurs from the Jurassic and Cretaceous.
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The oceanic Pacific Islands received insects from New Guinea The number of higher taxa falls with greater distance from New Guinea, with the age of island groups In some. The insect faunas of New Guinea and New Zealand interchanged through New Caledonia not Australia. J. L. Gressit , 1958 New Guinea and Insect Distribution Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Entomology: Montreal, August 17–25, 1956 There is no comprehensive overview on the insect fauna of New Guinea but a bibliography is available J. L. Gressitt and J. J. H. Szent-Ivany, 1968 Bibliography of New Guinea entomology Pacific Insects Monograph 18: 1-674 pdf There may be 300,000 - 100,000 species and Papua New Guinea ranks 12th in the world in terms of endemism of large butterflies. The Papua Insects Foundation provides an expert resource Papua Insects Foundation Insects of Papua Indonesia.
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As the term character displacement is commonly used, it generally refers to morphological differences due to competition. Brown and Wilson viewed character displacement as a phenomenon involved in speciation, stating, "we believe that it is a common aspect of geographical speciation, arising most often as a product of the genetic and ecological interaction of two (or more) newly evolved, cognate species [derived from the same immediate parental species] during their period of first contact." While character displacement is important in various scenarios of speciation,Thierry Lodé "La guerre des sexes chez les animaux" 2006 Eds Odile jacob, Paris including adaptive radiations like the cichlid fish faunas in the rift lakes of East Africa, it also plays an important role in structuring communities. It also plays a role in speciation by reinforcement in such that allopatric populations overlapping in sympatry exhibit greater trait divergence.
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The unexpected discovery of Thliptosaurus in a region of the Karoo outside of the historically sampled localities suggests that it may have been part of an endemic local fauna not found in these historic sites. Such under-sampled localities may contain 'hidden diversities' of Permian faunas that are unknown from traditional samples. Thliptosaurus is also unusual for dicynodonts as it lacks a pineal foramen, suggesting that it played a much less important role in thermoregulation than it did for other dicynodonts. While the name literally translates to "compressed lizard", referring to the severely crushed and flattened skull of the only known specimen, it also alludes to the Biblical thlipsis, a time of tribulation and hardship preceding the End Times, alluding to the existence of Thliptosaurus just before the mass extinction at the end of the Permian, also known as the Great Dying.
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Lesser Antillean rodent faunas mostly consist of oryzomyines, members of a distantly related group of rodents, and include two of the largest known oryzomyines, Megalomys desmarestii and "Oryzomys hypenemus". Various other rodents are limited to land-bridge islands such as Trinidad, which were connected to the mainland during glacial-period lowered sea levels in the Pleistocene, or to smaller portions of the Caribbean archipelago. Much of the native rodent fauna of the Caribbean are extinct because of human influences, particularly following the introduction of invasive species such as Old World rats. For the purposes of this article, the "Caribbean" includes all islands in the Caribbean Sea (except for small islets close to the mainland) and the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Barbados, which are not in the Caribbean Sea but biogeographically belong to the same Caribbean bioregion.
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Works incorporating speculative evolution may have entirely conceptual species that evolve on a planet other than Earth, or they may be an alternate history focused on an alternate evolution of terrestrial life. Speculative evolution is often considered hard science fiction because of its strong connection to and basis in science, particularly biology. Speculative evolution is a long-standing trope within science fiction, often recognized as beginning as such with H. G. Wells's 1895 novel The Time Machine, which featured several imaginary future creatures. Although small-scale speculative faunas were a hallmark of science fiction throughout the 20th century, ideas were only rarely well-developed, with some exceptions such as Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom, a fictional rendition of Mars and its ecosystem published through novels from 1912 to 1941, and Gerolf Steiner's Rhinogradentia, a fictional order of mammals created in 1957.
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The Doushantuo Formation () is a fossil Lagerstätte in Weng'an County, Guizhou Province, China that is notable for being one of the oldest beds to contain minutely preserved microfossils, phosphatic fossils that are so characteristic they have given their name to "Doushantuo type preservation". The formation is of particular interest because a part of it appears to cover the boundary between the enigmatic organisms of the Ediacaran geological period and the more familiar fauna of the Cambrian explosion where lifeforms recognizable as ancestors of later and recent lifeforms first emerged. Taken as a whole, the Doushantuo Formation ranges from about 635 Ma (million years ago) at its base to about 551 Ma at its top, predating by perhaps five Ma the earliest of the 'classical' Ediacaran faunas from Mistaken Point on the Avalon peninsula of Newfoundland, and recording conditions up to a good forty to fifty million years before the Cambrian explosion.
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The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, which occurred approximately 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous, caused the extinction of all dinosaur groups except for the neornithine birds. Some other diapsid groups, such as crocodilians, sebecosuchians, turtles, lizards, snakes, sphenodontians, and choristoderans, also survived the event. The surviving lineages of neornithine birds, including the ancestors of modern ratites, ducks and chickens, and a variety of waterbirds, diversified rapidly at the beginning of the Paleogene period, entering ecological niches left vacant by the extinction of Mesozoic dinosaur groups such as the arboreal enantiornithines, aquatic hesperornithines, and even the larger terrestrial theropods (in the form of Gastornis, eogruiids, bathornithids, ratites, geranoidids, mihirungs, and "terror birds"). It is often cited that mammals out-competed the neornithines for dominance of most terrestrial niches but many of these groups co-existed with rich mammalian faunas for most of the Cenozoic Era.
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In 2015, a new species was described: Cimoliopterus dunni, which was discovered in the Britton Formation on the north-central Texas, United States, and its fossil remains date to the Cenomanian stage, of the early Late Cretaceous. The holotype specimen consists in a partial rostrum with the 26 preserved alveoli and bears a thin premaxillary crest that begins over the fourth alveoli, the tip of the snout is blunt and the rostrum have an angle of 45° respect to the anterior part of the palate. This find extends the distribution of the genus to North America and shows that the pterosaur faunas from Europe and North America still had contact during the middle Cretaceous. The phylogenetic analysis included in the description of this species indicates that Cimoliopterus is a basal pteranodontoid closely related with Aetodactylus, which has also been found in Cenomanian strata from Texas.
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Despite their similarities, there are also differences between the aquatic fauna of Chao Phraya and Mae Klong; the latter (but not the former) is home to a few taxa otherwise only known in major Burmese rivers: the Irrawaddy, Salween, and Tenasserim. The aquatic fauna in Chao Phraya–Mae Klong also show clear similarities with that of the middle Mekong (the lower Mekong fauna more closely resembles that of the eastern Malay Peninsula). It is believed that the upper Mekong was connected to Chao Phraya (rather than present-day lower Mekong) until the Quaternary, which explains the similarities in their river faunas. This included the Nan River basin, a tributary of the Chao Phraya, which is home to a number of taxa (for example, Ambastaia nigrolineata and Sectoria) otherwise only known from Mekong. Of the fish species known from the Chao Phraya–Mae Klong, only about 50 are absent from the Mekong.
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Some molecular clock data suggest modern rodents (members of the order Rodentia) had appeared by the late Cretaceous, although other molecular divergence estimations are in agreement with the fossil record. Rodents are thought to have evolved in Asia, where local multituberculate faunas were severely affected by the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event and never fully recovered, unlike their North American and European relatives. In the resulting ecological vacuum, rodents and other Glires were able to evolve and diversify, taking the niches left by extinct multituberculates. The correlation between the spread of rodents and the demise of multituberculates is a controversial topic, not fully resolved. American and European multituberculate assemblages do decline in diversity in correlation with the introduction of rodents in these areas, but the remaining Asian multituberculates co-existed with rodents with no observable replacement taking place, and ultimately both clades co-existed for at least 15 million years.
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"Late Quaternary vertebrate faunas of the Lesser Antilles: historical components of Caribbean biogeography", 1994, Bulletin of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Pregill, G. K., D. W. Steadman, and D. R. Watters. However, it is unknown whether this species was contemporaneous with human populations. Fossil specimens discovered at the end of the 20th century on Anguilla have been dated to the last interstadial period,"Body size variability and a Sangamonian extinction model for Amblyrhiza, a West Indian megafaunal rodent", 1998, Quaternary Research, D.A. McFarlane, R.D.E. MacPhee & D. Ford while very recent discoveries made on Coco Islet (Saint-Barthélemy) are dated to 400,000 - 500,000 years;"New specimens of Amblyrhiza inundata (Rodentia, Caviomoprha) from the Middle Pleistocene of Saint Barthélemy, French West Indies", 2014, Caribbean Journal of Earth Science, D.A. McFarlane, J. Lundberg & G. Maincent no bone has been recovered yet from a pre-Columbian archaeological site.
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The Cambrian fossil record, above all the various lagerstätten such as the Burgess Shale, Sirius Passet, Chengjiang and Orsten faunas, has yielded a very rich record of well-preserved arthropods, including the well-known trilobites. Many Cambrian arthropods, including the trilobites themselves, possess a single pair of slender antennae, which have been equated with either the first or second antennae of the crustaceans; and either the chelicerae or the missing appendages of the supposedly reduced deuterocerebrum in chelicerates. However, another group of arthropods, the so-called "great appendage" arthropods, including Yohoia, Leanchoilia and Alalcomenaeus, do not possess simple antennae, but rather have a robust, branched structure, which was called the "great appendage" by Harry B. Whittington in his restudy of these taxa. Yet another group of arthropods may possess two differentiated head appendages, of which the most important and controversial is the Chengjiang form Fuxianhuia.
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A restoration of Dinornis robustus and Pachyornis elephantopus, both from the South Island The two main faunas identified in the South Island include: : The fauna of the high-rainfall west coast beech (Nothofagus) forests that included Anomalopteryx didiformis (bush moa) and Dinornis robustus (South Island giant moa), and : The fauna of the dry rainshadow forest and shrublands east of the Southern Alps that included Pachyornis elephantopus (heavy-footed moa), Euryapteryx gravis, Emeus crassus, and Dinornis robustus. A 'subalpine fauna' might include the widespread D. robustus, and the two other moa species that existed in the South Island: :: Pachyornis australis, the rarest moa species, the only moa species not yet found in Maori middens. Its bones have been found in caves in the northwest Nelson and Karamea districts (such as Honeycomb Hill Cave), and some sites around the Wanaka district. :: Megalapteryx didinus, more widespread, named "upland moa" because its bones are commonly found in the subalpine zone.
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On Ingleborough the limestone is not very fossiliferous, but the Main Limestone contains small corals of a zaphrentoid type and an upper Visean fauna. Posidonomya Becheri occurs fairly low down in the series in the Shale above the Hardraw Scar and Gayle limestones, but it is not accompanied by any of the goniatites or other cephalopods and lamellibranchs which characterize the Posidonomya Becheri beds of the Pendleside Series, the faunas of the Yoredale and Pendleside phases being very distinct. The Red Bed Limestone of Leyburn, the uppermost limestone of the series, is very rich in fish remains, which are identical in many cases with those found in the topmost beds of the massive Carboniferous Limestone at Bolt Edge quarry in Derbyshire. The shales between the limestones are rich in fossils and contain abundant single corals referable to Zaphrentis enniskilleni, Cyclophyllum pachyendothecum, and others; these, though high- zonal forms, occur low down in the Yoredale strata, even in the shale above the Hardraw Scar limestone.
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The Dinosaur Park Formation in Alberta, Canada, where S. validum was first discovered S. validum is known from the late Late Cretaceous Belly River Group (the Canadian equivalent to the Judith River Group in the US), and specimens have been recovered from the Dinosaur Park Formation (late Campanian, 76.5 to 75 mya) in Dinosaur Provincial Park (including the lectotype specimen), and the Oldman Formation (middle Campanian, 77.5 to 76.5 mya) of Alberta, Canada. The pachycephalosaurs Hanssuesia and Foraminacephale are also known from both formations. S. novomexicanum is known from the Fruitland (late Campanian, about 75 mya) and lower Kirtland Formation (late Campanian, about 74 mya) of New Mexico, and if this species correctly belongs in Stegoceras, the genus would have had a broad geographic distribution. The presence of similar pachycephalosaurs in both the west and north of North America during the latest Cretaceous shows that they were an important part of the dinosaur faunas there.
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The question whether interspecific competition limits global biodiversity is disputed today, but analytical studies of the global Phanerozoic fossil record are in accordance with the existence of global (although not constant) carrying capacities for marine biodiversity. Interspecific competition is also the basis for Van Valen's Red Queen hypothesis, and it may underlie the positive correlation between origination and extinction rates that is seen in almost all major taxa. In the previous examples, the macroevolutionary role of interspecific competition is that of a limiting factor of biodiversity, but interspecific competition also promotes niche differentiation and thus speciation and diversification. The impact of interspecific competition may therefore change during phases of diversity build-up, from an initial phase where positive feedback mechanisms dominate to a later phase when niche-peremption limits further increase in the number of species; a possible example for this situation is the re-diversification of marine faunas after the end-Permian mass extinction event.
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The body size-species richness distribution is a pattern observed in the way taxa are distributed over large spatial scales. The number of species that exhibit small body size generally far exceed the number of species that are large-bodied. Macroecology has long sought to understand the mechanisms that underlie the patterns of biodiversity, such as the body size-species richness pattern. This pattern was first observed by Hutchinson and MacArthur (1959),Hutchinson GE & MacArthur RH (1959) A theoretical ecological model of size distributions among species of animals. American Naturalist 93(869):117-125. and it appears to apply equally well to a broad range of taxa: from birds and mammals to insects, bacteria (May, 1978;May, R. Diversity of insect faunas. Blackwell scientific publications:London. 1978. 188-203. Brown and Nicoletto, 1991Brown JH & Nicoletto PF (1991) Spatial scaling of the species composition - body masses of North-American land mammals. American Naturalist 138(6):1478-1512.) and deep sea gastropods (McClain, 2004McClain CR (2004) Connecting species richness, abundance and body size in deep-sea gastropods.
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In Madagascar, Azendohsaurus co-existed with the hyperodapedontine rhynchosaur Isalorhynchus, the herbivorous traversodontid cynodonts Dadadon and Menadon, and the predatory chiniquodontid cynodont Chiniquodon kalanoro, as well as an undescribed kannemeyeriiform dicynodont, a sphenodontian reptile, a procolophonid parareptile, the diminutive lagerpetid Kongonaphon, various other undescribed dinosauromorphs, and an "enigmatic archosaur" of uncertain classification. The faunal composition of the Isalo II is believed to represent a Middle Triassic Ladinian aged assemblage, existing prior to the appearance of dinosaurs and associated Late Triassic faunas, particularly aetosaurs and phytosaurs that are absent from the formation, and also inferred from the dominance of traversodonts in the fauna. However, this age assessment remains uncertain, and the formation is possibly from the younger early Late Triassic during the Carnian, as has been proposed for the T5 member of the Argana Formation. Fossils of A. madagaskarensis have been exclusively recovered from a deposit of fine grained red mudstone, while other fossil bearing localities in the formation consist of medium grained channel sands, possibly reflecting a habitat preference in the ecosystem distinct from other animals or unique behavioural trait.
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At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, when scientists first realized that there had been glacial and interglacial ages, and that they were somehow associated with the prevalence or disappearance of certain animals, they surmised that the termination of the Pleistocene ice age might be an explanation for the extinctions. Critics object that since there were multiple glacial advances and withdrawals in the evolutionary history of many of the megafauna, it is rather implausible that only after the last glacial maximum would there be such extinctions. However, this criticism is rejected by a recent study indicating that terminal Pleistocene megafaunal community composition may have differed markedly from faunas present during earlier interglacials, particularly with respect to the great abundance and geographic extent of Pleistocene Bison at the end of the epoch. This suggests that the survival of megafaunal populations during earlier interglacials is essentially irrelevant to the terminal Pleistocene extinction event, because bison were not present in similar abundance during any of the earlier interglacials.
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They also pointed out that carcharodontosaurs appear to have had the proportionally largest skulls, but that Tyrannosaurus appears to have had longer hind limbs. In an interview for a 1995 article entitled "new beast usurps T. rex as king carnivore", Sereno noted that these newly discovered theropods from South America and Africa competed with Tyrannosaurus as the largest predators, and would help in the understanding of Late Cretaceous dinosaur faunas, which had otherwise been very "North America-centric". In the same issue of the journal in which Carcharodontosaurus was described, the paleontologist Philip J. Currie cautioned that it was yet to be determined which of the two animals were larger, and that the size of an animal is less interesting to paleontologists than, for example, adaptations, relationships, and distribution. He also found it remarkable that the two animals were found within a year of each other, and were closely related, in spite of being found on different continents. In a 1997 interview, Coria estimated Giganotosaurus to have been 13.7 (45 ft) to 14.3 (47 ft) m long and weighing based on new material, larger than Carcharodontosaurus.
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