When you choose to publish with PLOS, your research makes an impact. Make your work accessible to all, without restrictions, and accelerate scientific discovery with options like preprints and published peer review that make your work more Open.

Journals
More Content
PLOS BLOGS The Official PLOS Blog
Browse all PLOS Blogs
Browse all PLOS Blogs

Fossil Friday Roundup: April 7, 2017

Andrew Farke Fossil Friday Roundup

Featured Image: Edmontosaurus reconstruction from Xing et al. 2017, published this past week in PLOS ONE. 

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Fossils matter: improved estimates of divergence times in Pinus reveal older diversification (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
  • Eobowenia gen. nov. from the Early Cretaceous of Patagonia: indication for an early divergence of Bowenia? (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
  • Stars in the Silurian sky: Echinoderm holdfasts from the Carnic Alps, Austria (Geologica Acta)
  • Unique diversity of acanthothoracid placoderms (basal jawed vertebrates) in the Early Devonian of the Prague Basin, Czech Republic: A new look at Radotina and Holopetalichthys (PLOS ONE)
  • New morphological information on, and species of placoderm fish Africanaspis (Arthrodira, Placodermi) from the Late Devonian of South Africa (PLOS ONE)
  • The Erymnochelys group of turtles (Pleurodira, Podocnemididae) in the Eocene of Europe: New taxa and paleobiogeographical implications (PalaeoE)
  • Homeotic shift at the dawn of the turtle evolution (Royal Society Open Science)
  • Digital dissection and three-dimensional interactive models of limb musculature in the Australian estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) (PLOS ONE)
  • Mesosaurid Swim Traces (Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution)
  • Redescription of Dawndraco kanzai Kellner, 2010 and reassignment of the type specimen to Pteranodon sternbergi Harksen, 1966 (VAMP)
  • Supplementary cranial description of the types of Edmontosaurus regalis (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae), with comments on the phylogenetics and biogeography of Hadrosaurinae (PLOS ONE)
  • Scientific illustration & reconstruction of a skull of the diplodocid sauropod dinosaur Galeamopus (Journal of Palaeontological Techniques)
  • Detecting taxonomic and phylogenetic signals in equid cheek teeth: towards new palaeontological and archaeological proxies (Royal Society Open Science)
  • RNames, a stratigraphical database designed for the statistical analysis of fossil occurrences – the Ordovician diversification as a case study (PalaeoE)

Community Events and Society Updates:

  • Winifred Goldring Award — nominations due April 15 (link [Word document])
  • AWG Undergraduate Excellence in Paleontology Award — nominations due April 15 (link [Word document])
  • On  Behalf of Ken Carpenter (H/T Mike Everhart):
    • Agassiz fossil fish collection found.Louis Agassiz wrote his monumental Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles between 1833 and 1843 before moving to the US in 1845. The whereabouts of many of his specimens has been unknown and presumed lost. I have managed to track down the specimens at the Muséum d’histoire Naturelle de Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Agassiz was at the University of Neuchâtel when he wrote his monster 10 volume publication. The collection was moved to the city museum from the university geology department in the early 1900s (which is when it disappeared). The conservator for the collections is Thierry Malvesy (thierry.malvesy@unine.ch ) and she can provide you with the specimens they have so far identified (much of it now photographed). The museum’s website: www.museum-neuchatel.ch . The museum wants to make the Agassiz collection better known to the international community.Ken

New and Views:

Animals and Anatomy:

Specific Specimens:

  • Introducing Daspletosaurus horneri, the Two Medicine Tyrannosaurine: Ontogeny (Tyrannosauroidea Central)
  • Introducing Daspletosaurus horneri, the Two Medicine Tyrannosaurine: Anagenesis (Tyrannosauroidea Central)
  • Queensland’s own Loch Ness monster goes on show as plesiosaur skeleton is taken out of crates at Boulia (Link)
  • Paleo Profile: The Whale Caiman (Laelaps)
  • Monkey business produces rare preserved blood in amber fossils (Link)
  • Fossil Friday – horse metacarpal (Valley of the Mastodon)

Featured Folks and Fieldwork:

  • New Lab Helps Scientists Study the Earth’s Oldest Fossils, Minerals, Rocks (Link)
  • Digitally mapping Australia’s coastal dinosaur tracks – Author interview with Anthony Romilio (PeerJ Blog)
  • Following Father Verhoeven to Flores (Paige Fossil History)
  • 150 things about Canadian palaeo, part 8 – Dinosaur fossil localities (Musings of a Clumsy Paleontologist)
  • Tilly Edinger vs. the Nazis (Letters from Gondwana)
  • Read our recent Reddit AMA with PLOS ONE author Stefan Bengston (Link)

Museums, Methods, and Musings:

  • Photogrammetry Testing 8: COLMAP (Peter Falkingham)
  • I really dislike rotation maths! (Peter Falkingham)
  • Important, Widely Used and Well-Reported Datasets (EveryONE)
  • Speaker Series 2017: Mass Extinctions, Ray-Finned Fishes, and the Closing of Romer’s Gap (Inside the Royal Tyrrell Museum)
  • Conservatives and liberals united only by interest in dinosaurs, study shows (Link)
  • Towards the long-overdue open graph of citations (SV-POW)

Arts, Culture, and Fun:

Do you have some news, a blog, or something just plain cool you want to share with the PLOS Paleo Community? Email it to us at paleocommunity@plos.org, tweet it to us at @PLOSPaleo, or message us on Facebook.

Back to top