The locality of Groß Pampau in northern Germany is famous for its rich marine mammal assemblage of the Miocene age. A newly discovered ear bone of a fossil sperm whale is described here with morphological characters so far unknown from other sperm whales. It remains unclear at this point if it could belong to a sperm whale whose fragments were discovered in the same locality or to another, already-described taxon, of which the ear bones are still unknown.

Forcipulatacea is one of the major clades of extant sea stars with 400 extant species described, but with fewer than 25 fossil species known. Thus, the identification of any new fossil representatives is significant. We reappraise Ophidiaster davidsoni from the Tithonian of Boulogne, France, which was assigned to another major extant group, and reassign it within a new forcipulatacean genus Psammaster gen. nov. A phylogenetic analysis does not place it within any existing forcipulatacean family.

Mennerotodus is a genus of fossil shark that lived during the Paleogene Period, between 65 and 38 million years ago, and was previously known only from Asia and Europe. In this study, new species of Mennerotodus have been identified in the USA from Alabama (Mennerotodus mackayi) and South Carolina (Mennerotodus parmleyi). Mennerotodus mackayi is the oldest of the species, suggesting the genus originated in the Gulf Coastal Plain of the USA during the Paleocene Epoch (~ 65 million years ago).

A male of the extinct leaf-beetle species Calomicrus eocenicus embedded in Baltic amber is found and compared with an earlier known female. The beetle genitalia are illustrated in detail using X-ray microtomography. The male is smaller than female and has a modified last abdominal segment. The extinct species (about 40 million years old) possesses typical sexual characters which are similar to the characters of extant beetles within the group.

New fossil species of skin beetles (Dermestidae) from two bioinclusions in Eocene ambers (Baltic and Rovno) are described and compared with extinct and extant congeners. The affinity of the Rovno and Baltic amber varieties is briefly reviewed. The checklist of the described beetles (57 species) from Rovno amber is compiled and presented for the first time.

Peltochelys duchastelii is an enigmatic fossil turtle from the Early Cretaceous of Bernissart, Belgium. Here we provide an alternative interpretation of the morphology of this turtle, which suggests for the first time relationships with paracryptodires, a now extinct group of turtles known from coeval deposits throughout western Europe and North America.