In: Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, 2019, vol. 60, no. 2, p. 129–155
The fossil record of nonbaenid paracryptodires ranges from the Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) to the Paleocene of North America and Europe only. Earlier remains may be present as early as the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian). Only a single dispersal event is documented between the two continents after their breakup during the Cretaceous in the form of the appearance of the Compsemys lineage in the ...
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In: PeerJ, 2019, vol. 7, p. e7476
Background: In the last 20 years, a general picture of the evolutionary relationships between geoemydid turtles (ca. 70 species distributed over the Northern hemisphere) has emerged from the analysis of molecular data. However, there is a paucity of good traditional morphological characters that correlate with the phylogeny, which are essential for the robust integration of fossil and...
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In: Journal of Anatomy, 2019, no. 0, p. -
The middle ear of turtles differs from other reptiles in being separated into two distinct compartments. Several ideas have been proposed as to why the middle ear is compartmentalized in turtles, most suggesting a relationship with underwater hearing. Extant turtle species span fully marine to strictly terrestrial habitats, and ecomorphological hypotheses of turtle hearing predict that this...
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In: PeerJ, 2019, vol. 7, p. e7517
Background: Wischberg is a Swiss locality in Bern Canton which has yielded numerous vertebrates remains from the earliest Miocene (= MN1). It has a very rich faunal diversity, one of the richest in Switzerland for this age. Among all the mammals reported in the original faunal list 70 years ago, three rhinocerotid species were identified. The material consists of two fragmentary skulls,...
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In: PLOS ONE, 2019, vol. 14, no. 5, p. e0215543
We studied 4 Ma old isolated pharyngeal teeth from lake sediments of Çevirme (Tekman Palaeolake, Erzurum Province). Based on shape characters defined for 3D models of modern species, we found that the Pliocene lake constitutes sympatric occurrence of four Capoeta species (C. cf. umbla, C. cf. baliki, C. cf. sieboldi and C. sp. sevangi/capoeta), whose modern relatives belong to a monophyletic...
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In: eLife, 2019, vol. 8, p. e43789
The Late Jurassic ‘Solnhofen Limestones’ are famous for their exceptionally preserved fossils, including the urvogel Archaeopteryx, which has played a pivotal role in the discussion of bird origins. Here we describe a new, non-archaeopterygid avialan from the Lower Tithonian Mörnsheim Formation of the Solnhofen Archipelago, Alcmonavis poeschli gen. et sp. nov. Represented by a right...
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In: BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2019, vol. 19, no. 1, p. 117
The branchiostegal series consists of an alignment of bony elements in the posterior portion of the skull of osteichthyan vertebrates. We trace the evolution of the number of elements in a comprehensive survey that includes 440 extant and 66 extinct species. Using a newly updated actinopterygian tree in combination with phylogenetic comparative analyses, we test whether osteichthyan...
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In: PLOS ONE, 2019, vol. 14, no. 5, p. e0214629
Plesiochelyidae were relatively large coastal marine turtles, which inhabited the epicontinental seas of Western Europe during the Late Jurassic. Their fossil record can be tracked in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Portugal. The Jura Mountains, in northwestern Switzerland, have been the main source for the study of this group, mostly thanks to the rich and famous...
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In: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2019, vol. 185, no. 2, p. 487–510
Since its first erection almost 200 years ago, palaeontologists have assigned to the genus Anthracotherium many species, some with dubious descriptions. Although it is a key taxon for specifying the invasion of Europe by terrestrial mammals during the well-studied Grande Coupure Event at the beginning of the Oligocene, the genus has never been reviewed before. A recent interest in the...
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In: PeerJ, 2019, vol. 7, p. e6280
Testudinoidea is a major clade of turtles that has colonized different ecological environments across the globe throughout the Tertiary. Aquatic testudinoids have a particularly rich fossil record in the Tertiary of the northern hemisphere, but little is known about the evolutionary history of the group, as the phylogenetic relationships of most fossils have not been established with...
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