In this paper, we describe a new species of embolomere from 255-million-year-old fossil beds from northern China. This group of ancient animals is closely related to amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals) and was previously thought to have gone extinct around 273 million years ago. The new discovery indicates that North China, with its ancient tropical rain forest, became a last reservoir for these animals right before the end-Permian mass extinction.

Insects have been feeding on plants for over 300 million years. The fossil record preserves evidence of this behavior: it is possible to examine a fossilized leaf and see the spots where insects ate it or laid their eggs in it. The study of these insect traces on leaves shows us how insects have adapted to changing climates. Here, we address the question of how many leaves from a single fossil locality must be examined to permit statistically robust comparisons in deep time.

Baenids are a group of fossil turtles with a rich fossil record that spans from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) to Eocene of North America. Only a few fossils are known that document the early evolution of the group. We here describe a new species of baenid, Lakotemys australodakotensis, from the Early Cretaceous (Berriasian to Valanginian) Lakota Formation of South Dakota, USA. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that this is the oldest known baenid turtle.

Two morphometric methods are applied for the analysis of suture lines in Early Carboniferous ammonoids: (1) classic metric data using multivariate statistic methods and (2) outline data are analysed using the elliptic Fourier analysis. Both methods lead to similar results and demonstrate ontogenetic and phylogenetic trends in these ammonoids: (1) a general decrease in the amplitude of lobes and saddles, (2) a proportional widening of the external lobe, and (3) a heightening of the median saddle.

The Spanish Algorachelus peregrinus is the oldest pleurodiran turtle known in the Northern Hemisphere. New material is presented, including several shells. The patterns by which some of them were disarticulated are analyzed. Several pathologies are identified. The knowledge about the anatomy and intraspecific variability is improved. Algorachelus is recognized in the Middle East and North America. The oldest known dispersal event of Pleurodira from Gondwana to Laurasia is characterized.

Mesosaurs were reptiles that lived around 280 mya. They were the first land reptile group to return to the water. Study of a fossil from the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin reveals a previously unobserved baby skeleton near the adult. This small skeleton can tell us about how these creatures grew; the lower segment of the hind limb is already proportionally larger than the upper hind limb and the lower and upper forelimbs. This may be because young mesosaurs needed to swim right from birth.

This paper presents a description of an extremely well-preserved and articulated skeleton of a temnospondyl amphibian from the early Permian of Oklahoma. Postcranial material is not often well-preserved or well-described in the literature for this group, known as dissorophids, and acquiring new data on this region of the skeleton is important for understanding the evolution of the group. It also represents the first documentation at this site of a genus that was otherwise known only from Texas.

Extant beaked whales perform deep dives to forage for squids. We studied the morphology of the fossil ziphiid Messapicetus gregarius to evaluate its ability to perform such dives. Our analysis suggests an enlargement of the pterygoid sinus system in deep divers. In M. gregarius, the pterygoid sinus is enlarged, but other lines of evidence indicate that the coastal environment also represented an important part of its home range.

Plesiosaurians retain a very long neck but greatly reduce neck flexibility, and the cervicals have large, paired, and highly symmetrical foramina on the ventral side of the centrum, traditionally termed subcentral foramina, and on the floor of the neural canal. We found that these dorsal and the ventral foramina are connected by a canal. The foramen are not for nutrient transfer; they are the osteological correlates of a highly paedomorphic vascular system in the neck of plesiosaurs.

Amber functions as a window into the past, capable of capturing behaviors frozen for millions of years. Here, we report on the exceptionally rare discovery of a dinosaur-age larva of a stinging wasp, feeding on its cricket host, in mid-Cretaceous amber from Myanmar. It reveals a considerable constancy in the biology of this particular family over the last 100 million years. The excellent preservation of the larva is remarkable and due solely to the fidelity permitted by inclusion in amber.

We review the fossil history of pseudoscorpions (Arachnida: Pseudoscorpiones), one of the oldest terrestrial lineages with a fossil record that goes back to the Devonian. Pseudoscorpions do not fossilise easily, and records from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic consist almost exclusively of amber inclusions. Overall, 16 of the 26 recent families have been documented from fossils. This is a group of evolutionary stasis and we discuss aspects of palaeobiology, preservation, and ecology.

Based on a total of 14 inclusions from Burmese amber the new, extinct insect order Tarachoptera was established. The new order Tarachoptera is placed in the superorder Amphiesmenoptera. The species of Tarachoptera are tiny insects with a wing span of 2.3–4.5 mm, but are highly specialized according to their aberrant morphology. They lived in the forests of Southeast Asia about 100 million years ago.

Based on the estimation of its body mass and metabolic rate, we calculated heat balance, gas exchange, osmoregulation, and digestion of the 290-million-year-old aquatic amphibian Archegosaurus. Our results suggest that its physiology was more fish- than tetrapod-like in many respects. We conducted this study, which is mainly based on theoretical calculations and comparison with extant analogs, to shed light on the physiology and lifestyle of early tetrapods.

We review shell bone microstructures of Adocidae and Nanhsiungchelyidae, two groups of extinct hide-necked turtles related to modern soft-shelled turtles (Trionychidae) and the pig-nosed turtle Carettochelys insculpta (Carettochelyidae). Adocids and nanhsiungchelyids both have a good fossil record in North America and Asia during the Cretaceous and Cenozoic. Our microstructural data supplement previously reported differences in external shell morphology between adocids and nanhsiungchelyids.

Fossil insects preserved as an imprint on laminae have subtle differences in relief which can be difficult to photograph. Recourse to reflectance transformation imaging allowed us to deliver exhaustive and interactive photographic data for Protelytron permianum. Based on these data we were able ascertain that it is an early relative of earwigs. In order to better appreciate its elaborate hind wing folding mechanism, we provide guidelines to build and operate a paper model.

In this study, the well-preserved skull of a giant amphibian from the Late Triassic Stuttgart Formation (Schilfsandstein) of Bielefeld-Sieker in NW Germany is described and a new species, Cyclotosaurus buechneri sp. nov., is erected. Cyclotosaurus buechneri represents the only unequivocal evidence of Cyclotosaurus in northern Germany. The amphibian skull was found more than 40 years ago and is well known in Bielefeld and the surrounding areas but has so far never been described.

Complete morphological descriptions of exceptionally beautifully preserved Late Jurassic fishes from Bavaria (e.g., Ettling and Eichsttät), southern Germany, are provided for a new genus and species, which is endemic of Ettling and for a new family, Ascalaboidae. The new family is only known from marine Upper Jurassic localities of Europe and is interpreted as an extinct and primitive group of Teleostei, which is considered the largest group within osteichthyans (bony fishes).

Here we describe a large specimen of the Paleozoic dissorophid amphibian Cacops woehri from the Fort Sill locality in Oklahoma, which was previously only known from a partial juvenile skull. The new data show that, in contrast to the closely related species C. morrisi, C. woehri underwent only subtle changes in skull morphology in late ontogeny, which indicates different functional demands possibly associated with a different ecology.