Skip to content

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.

PLOS BLOGS The Official PLOS Blog

Fossil Friday Roundup: April 6, 2018

Featured Image: webpic Images used to compare data collection methods. Specimens were collected from locality number TT92-3 (“Dori’s Tuff”). From Chang (2018).

Papers (All Open Access):

  • Combined morphological and phylogenomic re-examination of malawimonads, a critical taxon for inferring the evolutionary history of eukaryotes (RSOS)
  • Distribution modelling of pre-Columbian California grasslands with soil phytoliths: New insights for prehistoric grassland ecology and restoration (PLOS ONE)
  • Reinvestigating an enigmatic Late Cretaceous monocot: morphology, taxonomy, and biogeography of Viracarpon (PeerJ)
  • Positive biodiversity–productivity relationships in forests: climate matters (Biology Letters)
  • New fossil genus and species of Sinoalidae (Hemiptera: Cercopoidea) from the Middle to Upper Jurassic deposits in northeastern China (European Journal of Entomology)
  • DNA barcoding unravels contrasting evolutionary history of two widespread Asian tiger moth species during the Late Pleistocene (PLOS ONE)
  • Unlocking preservation bias in the amber insect fossil record through experimental decay (PLOS ONE)
  • Earliest ontogeny of early Cambrian acrotretoid brachiopods — first evidence for metamorphosis and its implications (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
  • Revisión morfológica de las tortugas del género Notoemys (Paleontología Mexicana)
  • Basilemys morrinensis, a new species of nanhsiungchelyid turtle from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation (Upper Cretaceous) of Alberta, Canada (JVP)
  • A case study of developmental palaeontology in Stereosternum tumidum (Mesosauridae, Parareptilia) (Fossil Record)
  • The Only Known Jawed Vertebrate with Four Eyes and the Bauplan of the Pineal Complex (Current Biology)
  • Taxonomic reassessment of Clevosaurus latidens Fraser, 1993 (Lepidosauria, Rhynchocephalia) and rhynchocephalian phylogeny based on parsimony and Bayesian inference (Journal of Paleontology)
  • Geographic variation in body size and its relationship with environmental gradients in the Oriental Garden Lizard, Calotes versicolor (Ecology and Evolution)
  • Nanostructure, osteopontin, and mechanical properties of calcitic avian eggshell (Science Advances)
  • Negligible effect of tooth reduction on body mass in Mesozoic birds (Vertebrata PalAsiatica)
  • Correction: Correlative microscopy of the constituents of a dinosaur rib fossil and hosting mudstone: Implications on diagenesis and fossil preservation (PLOS ONE)
  • Correction to ‘Estimating maximum bite performance in Tyrannosaurus rex using multi-body dynamics’ (Biology Letters)
  • A walk in the maze: variation in Late Jurassic tridactyl dinosaur tracks from the Swiss Jura Mountains (NW Switzerland) (PeerJ)
  • Genetic diversity and drivers of dwarfism in extinct island emu populations (Biology Letters)
  • Spatial and temporal divergence of the torquatus species group of the subterranean rodent Ctenomys (Contributions to Zoology)
  • Fossil Focus: Reimagining fossil cats (Palaeontology[Online])
  • Neogene and Quaternary fossil remains of beaked whales (Cetacea, Odontoceti, Ziphiidae) from deep-sea deposits off Crozet and Kerguelen islands, Southern Ocean (Geodiversitas)
  • Human bony labyrinth is an indicator of population history and dispersal from Africa (PNAS)
  • The prevalence of terraced treescapes in analyses of phylogenetic data sets (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
  • Including autapomorphies is important for paleontological tip-dating with clocklike data, but not with non-clock data (PeerJ)
  • webpic: A flexible web application for collecting distance and count measurements from images (PLOS ONE)

Pre-Prints and Post-Prints:

  • Research Infrastructures offer capacity to address scientific questions never attempted before: Are all taxa equal? (PeerJ)
  • Diversity of raptor dinosaurs in southeastern North America revealed by the first definite record from North Carolina (PeerJ)

Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources:

Meetings:

  • 11th Annual SeAVP Conference, May 23–27, 2018, North Carolina (Link)
  • Trekking Across the GOBE: From the Cambrian through the Katian, IGCP 653 Annual Meeting, June 3-7, 2018, Athens, Ohio, USA (Link)
  • European Association of Vertebrate Paleontologists Annual Meeting, Caprica, June 26–July 1, 2018 (Link)
  • 5th International Palaeontological Congress (IPC5), July 9–13, 2018, France (Link)
  • Flugsaurier 2018 Circular, August 10–14, 2018, Los Angeles (Link), Registration Deadline April 9
  • 78th Annual Meeting, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP), October 17–20, 2018, Albuquerque, New Mexico (Link)
  • 2018 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, November 4–7, 2018, Indianapolis, Indiana (Link)
  • North American Paleontological Convention June 23–27 2019 (Link)

Deadlines:

  • Raymond M. Alf Award for Excellence in Paleontological Research and Education, deadline April 13, 2018 (Alf Museum)
  • The AWG Undergraduate Excellence in Paleontology Award, deadline April 15, 2018 (PaleoSociety)

News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy:

Methods and Musings:

  • Awarding grants by throwing dice (SVPOW)
  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) I: Current Climate-Driven Impacts (Time Scavengers)
  • The End of a Tradition (Raptormaniacs)
  • The top 10 most popular SV-POW! posts (SVPOW)
  • How to make an impact in science policy as a graduate student (PLOS ECR Community)
  • Citations of lists – a small moan (Archosaur Musings)
  • History and Value (Extinct)
  • Faunal Interchanges, High School Students, and the Paleobiology Database (Project FOSSIL)
  • A paleontologist who teaches anatomy is good for medicine and science (Link)

Museums, Folks and Fieldwork:

  • Prehistoric Beast of the Week Visits the Canadian Museum of Nature (PBW)
  • The mounted skeleton of Patagotitan at the AMNH (SVPOW)
  • World class collections make a world class museum (Alf Museum)
  • Museum Collection Visit Bingo (PLOS Paleo)
  • A Day in the Life of John (What’s in John’s Freezer?)
  • Holy, Toledo! Life-Sized Flying Reptiles at the Zoo! (Dave’s Dinosaurs)
  • India’s paleontologists fight destruction of its fossil riches (Link)

Art, books, 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