Archive for category PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology
Rachel Zheng, Andrew A. Farke & Gy-Su Kim. 2011. A Photographic Atlas of the Pes from a Hadrosaurine Hadrosaurid Dinosaur. – PalArch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 8(7) (2011), 1-12. ISSN 1567-2158. 12 pages + 7 fi gures, 2 tables.
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on December 1st, 2011
Abstract Hadrosaurid dinosaurs are abundantly represented in terrestrial deposits from the Late Cretaceous, as isolated elements, associated specimens, and articulated skeletons with soft tissue. However, identifi cation of isolated elements can be diffi cult in the absence of adequate reference material. Here we present a photographic atlas of the complete pes from a hadrosaurine hadrosaurid (possibly Edmontosaurus annectens) collected in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana.
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Felipe Ribeiro de Santana, David J. Cicimurri & José Antonio Barbosa. 2011. New material of Apocopodon sericeus Cope, 1886 (Myliobatiformes, Myliobatidae) from the Paraíba Basin (Northeastern Brazil) and South Carolina (USA) with a reanalysis of the species.
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on October 24th, 2011
Abstract Myliobatiformes (Elasmobranchii: Batoidei) is circumglobally distributed and consists of 26 extant genera within ten families. The oldest records of the group occur in upper Cretaceous deposits, and one extinct species, Apocopodon sericeus, is found in the Danian (lower Paleocene) Maria Farinha Formation of the Paraíba Basin, Pernambuco state, northeastern Brazil. This taxon is known from isolated teeth and several partial dentitions in various states of completeness, and herein we describe a new, incomplete (lingual portion) Brazilian dental plate. Previously considered to be endemic to the Paraíba Basin, Apocopodon was recently identifi ed from South Carolina, United States. The sample consists of a nearly complete upper(?) dentition and numerous isolated teeth, and the material is indistinguishable from A. sericeus. The precise stratigraphic position and age of the South Carolina fossils is unknown, but based on the other associated Paleocene vertebrate fossils, we believe that the fossils originated from the Danian Rhems Formation. The South Carolina occurrence of Apocopodon represents a signifi cant geographic range extension of more than 7,000 km to the north of the type area, and the occurrence of this ray in such widely separated areas demonstrates the dispersion potential of fossil elasmobranch species. Analysis of the new specimens, along with reanalysis of all previously known Apocopodon dentitions maintained in Brazilian institutions, resulted in a revision of the morphological characteristics used to identify the taxon.
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BOOK REVIEW: Palarch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 8 (5) 2011
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in Book Reviews, PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on October 24th, 2011
Alexandra A. de Sousa about Müller, S. & F. Schrenk. 2008. The Neanderthals. – London & New York, Routledge.
We do not know whether Neanderthals would have blended in with modern humans, but we certainly do have a lot of real (and imagined) ideas about who they were. This point is well made by the book titled “The Neanderthals”, which under the writing of Müller & Schrenk fi ts well into the series “People of the Ancient World”. Although this book has “nothing revolutionary to say”,[...]
Robert W. Boessenecker. 2011. A New Marine Vertebrate Assemblage from the Late Neogene Purisima Formation in Central California, Part I: Fossil Sharks, Bony Fish, Birds, and Implications for the Age of the Purisma Formation West of the San Gregorio Fault.
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on September 17th, 2011
Abstract The Miocene to Pliocene Purisima Formation crops out in multiple transform fault bounded structural blocks in central California. As a result of poor exposure, strike slip fault offset, and uncertain intraformational correlations, some exposures of the Purisima Formation are not well dated. The San Gregorio section of the Purisima Formation occurs in the Pigeon Point Block, west of the San Gregorio Fault, along the coast of southern Halfmoon Bay. Ages based on invertebrate and diatom biostratigraphy support a Late Miocene to Early Pliocene age, while ash correlations indicate a much younger Middle to Late Pliocene (3.3-2.5 Ma) age. Abundant remains of marine vertebrates occur in the Purisima Formation. Recent fieldwork in the San Gregorio section identified a modest assemblage of 26 taxa, including sharks (Carcharodon carcharias, Carcharodon sp., Cetorhinus maximus, cf. Hexanchus, Isurus oxyrinchus, Pristiophorus sp., Squatina sp., and Sphyrna sp.), skates (Raja sp., cf. R. binoculata), bony fish (Paralichthys sp., Thunnus sp.), birds (Mancalla diegensis, Morus sp.), and 13 marine mammal taxa, including several new records for the Purisima Formation. The non-mammalian vertebrates of this assemblage are described herein. The vertebrate assemblage is utilized to evaluate previous biostratigraphic and tephrochronologic age determinations for the San Gregorio section. The stratigraphic range of Carcharodon carcharias, Raja sp., cf. R. binoculata, Mancalla diegensis, and some of the marine mammals strongly indicate a Middle to Late Pliocene age for the upper and middle parts of the section, while a Late Miocene or Early Pliocene age is probable for the base of the section.
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BOOK REVIEW: Palarch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 8 (3) 2011
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in Book Reviews, PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on April 24th, 2011
Ilja Nieuwland about Brian Switek. 2010. Written in Stone. Evolution, The Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature. – New York, Bellevue Literary Press.
The history of vertebrate paleontology has simultaneously been very well and very poorly served in the past. Certain periods have seen tens or hundreds of publications devoted to them, and there’s little new to be found out about London in the 1830s and 1840s, or the Bone Wars of the 1870s and 1880s. But there’s still a whole world to be discovered. One of the – many – admirable qualities of Brian Switek’s first book, Written in Stone, is that Switek generally steers clear from re-hashing the historical warhorses of vertebrate paleontology and so offers something that holds interest for both the lay reader and the paleontological veteran.
BOOK REVIEW: Palarch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 8 (2) 2011
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in Book Reviews, PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on April 24th, 2011
B.L. Beatty about Pinhasi, R.& Mays, S. (eds.) 2008. Advances in Human Palaeopathology. – Hoboken, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Paleopathology, as a science, has a deep and rich history, and most so for that which is focused on humans. Cases of pathologies in mummies, ancient buried skeletons, and even simply historical records are abundant, and have been praised not just for helping us understand the history of disease, but also in the role they play in humanizing history and historical figures. But this focus on cases has resulted in little available literature and direction in methods that are not simply the methods used by modern pathologists. While the interpretation of paleopathologies has had some very helpful standardization (Buikstra & Ubelaker, 1994), as well as discussions on theoretical limitations and opportunities in how they should be interpreted in animals in an evolutionary context (Beatty & Heckert, 2009, Beatty & Rothschild, 2009, Beatty & Dooley, 2010, Wolff, 2008, Wolff, 2009), methodologies used with modern technologies are largely relegated to the primary literature. In Pinhasi and Mays’s recent edited volume, “Advances in Human Palaeopathology”, we get a comprehensive collection of all the most up to date reviews on modern methods used in paleopathology of ancient humans. The book is organized in two parts: Analytical Approaches in Palaeopathology (chapters 1-9) and Diagnosis and Interpretation of Disease in Human Remains (chapters 10-16). Here I will review these chapters for their content and how they may be utilized by vertebrate palaeontologists.
BOOK REVIEW: Palarch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 8 (1) 2011
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in Book Reviews, PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on April 24th, 2011
B.L. Beatty about Sepkoski, D. & Ruse, M. (eds.) 2009. The Paleobiological Revolution. – Chicago, University of Chicago Press
The history of palaeontology tends to focus on Darwin, Cope and Marsh, or if someone is particularly scholarly, the Burgess Shale. But with the exception of studies on Darwin, few of these ever delve deeper in the broader meaning of the history of palaeontology in any Kuhnian paradigm shifting nature. That may be because palaeontology, despite all the excitement over new technologies and integrations with developmental biology, morphometrics or cladistics, is still largely dependant on classical methods – one needs to find and dig up the fossils, then identify and describe them, before much else can be done with them. Palaeontology had remained something of a “stamp-collecting” science, at least on a procedural basis as it was perceived, until the development of what most would call paleobiology. This book, edited by David Sepkoski and Michael Ruse, is a chronicle of the history of how paleobiology got “to the high table” in evolutionary biology. Perhaps most impressive, these editors managed to get these chapters together so cohesively, and by many of the original authors of seminal papers in what started in the early 1970s, including Raup, Bambach, Hallam, Sepkoski, and Valentine. It is unfortunate that Steven J. Gould and Jack Sepkoski and Tom Schopf did not live to contribute to this, but it is clear from the repeated focus on these individuals in the chapters by others that their influence is omnipresent despite their lack of authorship here.
Tor Bertin. 2010. A Catalogue of Material and Review of the Spinosauridae. – PalArch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 7 (4): 1-39
Posted by PalArch Editor (AV) in PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on December 9th, 2010
Abstract Spinosaurids are a monophyletic clade of large-bodied, long-snouted theropod dinosaurs known from minimal skeletal material. In an effort to assist future research on this unusual clade, a catalogue of past spinosaurid discoveries is presented. Database information includes specimen numbers, material identification, locality information, depositional environments, stratigraphic detail, generic or subclade assignment, tooth measurements, tooth placement, and detailed notes on the nature of the finds themselves when needed. Previously reported biogeographic and faunal dispersal patterns suggest that spinosaurids may eventually be found in North American strata, potentially having migrated from western Europe in the Early Cretaceous and eastern Asia over the Beringian isthmus in the Late Cretaceous. This database may be useful for predicting future points of spinosaurid discovery.
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BOOK REVIEW: Palarch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 7 (3) 2010
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in Book Reviews, PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on August 29th, 2010
H.D. Sues about Ryan, M.J., B.J. Chinnery-Allgeier & D.A. Eberth. Eds. 2010. New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: The Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium. – Bloomington, Indiana University Press
The Ceratopsia or horned dinosaurs are a very distinctive group of ornithischian dinosaurs. All have a narrow beak, and most have bony collars or frills extending from the back of the skull. The earliest forms were still rather small and bipedal. Later taxa attained large head and body size and became quadrupedal; they are often considered the dinosaurian analogue of a rhinoceros. Most of these derived forms also sport prominent nasal and/or supraorbital horns. One of the geologically youngest ceratopsians, Triceratops, ranks among the most widely known dinosaurs, rivaling its likely predator, Tyrannosaurus rex, in popular recognition.
Despite their appeal, ceratopsians have been the subject of only a few comprehensive studies. [...]
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Lucia Herrero & Andrew A. Farke. 2010. Hadrosaurid Dinosaur Skin Impressions from the Upper Cretaceous Kaiparowits Formation of Southern Utah, USA. – Palarch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 7(2) (2010), 1-7. ISSN 1567-2158. 7 pages + 1 figure.
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on August 29th, 2010
Abstract Skin impressions from hadrosaurid dinosaurs are relatively common finds throughout the Cretaceous Western Interior of North America. A recently discovered specimen from the late Campanian-aged Kaiparowits Formation of southern Utah is typical for hadrosaurs, with randomly arranged polygonal tubercles averaging around 4 mm in length and 3 mm in width. Based on the associated bones, these impressions likely originated on the thorax of the animal. In contrast with most previously published finds, the skin is not preserved in perfect articulation with the skeleton. This suggests a taphonomic mode in which the skeleton and soft tissues were partially disarticulated prior to burial.
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Syverson, Valerie J. & Donald R. Prothero. 2010. Evolutionary Patterns in Late Quaternary California Condors. – PalArch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 7, 1: 1-18
Posted by PalArch Editor (AV) in PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on March 11th, 2010
Abstract Pleistocene fossils related to the living California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) have been found in several locations in western North America. Different authors have either assigned these to the species G. amplus or considered them a chronological subspecies of G. californianus. We examined the morphology of the genus Gymnogyps from the late Pleistocene to the present, using hundreds of specimens from the asphalt deposits of Rancho La Brea (RLB) and 62 partial modern skeletons. The limb bones (using seven variables on each element) and skulls (using 13 variables) were quantitatively compared using bivariate and multivariate techniques. No significant size or shape change through time was apparent in RLB samples ranging from the late Pleistocene (35,000 radiocarbon years b.p.) to the early Holocene (9000 radiocarbon years b.p.), suggesting evolutionary stasis in the face of the climatic changes of the last glacial-interglacial cycle. Proximal limb elements and skulls showed patterns of variation consistent with a species distinction between the RLB specimens and modern G. californianus. This confirms Fisher’s (1944) contention that the RLB species is referable to G. amplus Miller 1911, and not referable to the modern species. A set of specimens from a 9000-year-old Indian midden in Oregon as well as the presence of Gymnogyps in early Holocene Pit 10 at RLB suggest that the modern and ancient Gymnogyps may have coexisted with each other as well as with humans, and not died out or become dwarfed with the extinction of the rest of the Pleistocene megafauna, as suggested by some authors.
Hans Paijmans & Alex Brandsen. 2010. Searching in Archaeological Texts. Problems and Solutions Using an Artificial Intelligence Approach. – PalArch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology, 7(2) (2010)
Abstract Searching in documents using full text indices is a powerful tool for retrieving relevant portions of text. However, performance is impeded by ambiguity in texts: similar words may have totally different meanings according to context. This also is true if the words are numbers, periods and place names, especially in archaeological and historical contexts. A new way of indexing texts allows for better and easier searching. This system has been developed in a collaboration between the RCE (The Dutch National Service for Cultural Heritage) and the University of Tilburg. With Open Boek, it is possible to search on chronological and geographical expressions, as well as regular keywords. In the newest version of Open Boek a number of additions to the system have been made to further improve the functionality.
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BOOK REVIEW: Palarch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, 6(2) (2009)
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in Book Reviews, PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on October 10th, 2009
B.L. Beatty about Prothero, D. & S. Foss. Eds. 2007. The Evolution of Artiodactyls. – Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press
Until the explosive results of the popularity of dinosaurs stimulated by fi lms like Jurassic Park, mammal palaeontology dominated vertebrate palaeontology meetings and publications. And yet, despite these former decades of dominance, the state of affairs, particularly the systematics and descriptive work on one of the most common large mammal groups in North America and Europe, the Artiodactyla, has been rife with gaps and conundrums. It is unfair to characterize the present state of most artiodactyl groups
to some inadequacy of workers from past decades, as they were simply doing their best with the materials and methods of the times. But considering the diversity of artiodactyls worldwide and their rich fossil record, most artiodactyl workers today would probably agree that the number of specialists had declined for much of the 1980s and 1990s. This last decade has been a renaissance for the fi eld, in part spurred by the debate over the position of the Cetacea within the Artiodactyla itself. …
BOOK REVIEW: Palarch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, 6(4) (2009)
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in Book Reviews, PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on October 10th, 2009
A. Dooley, jr. about Denny, M. 2008. How the Ocean Works. An Introduction to Oceanography. – Princeton, Princeton University Press
BOOK REVIEW: Palarch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, 6(3) (2009)
Posted by PalArch Editor (IN) in Book Reviews, PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology on October 10th, 2009
R.V. Hill about Larson, P. & K. Carpenter. Eds. 2008. Tyrannosaurus rex, the Tyrant King. – Bloomington, Indiana University Press
