No abstract

The Late Cretaceous was a time of tremendous global change, as the final stages of the Age of Dinosaurs were shaped by climate and sea level fluctuations and witness to marked paleogeographic and faunal changes, before the end-Cretaceous bolide impact. The terrestrial fossil record of Late Cretaceous Europe is becoming increasingly better understood, based largely on intensive fieldwork over the past two decades, promising new insights into latest Cretaceous faunal evolution. We review the terrestrial Late Cretaceous record from Europe and discuss its importance for understanding the paleogeography, ecology, evolution, and extinction of land-dwelling vertebrates. We review the major Late Cretaceous faunas from Austria, Hungary, France, Spain, Portugal, and Romania, as well as more fragmentary records from elsewhere in Europe. We discuss the paleogeographic background and history of assembly of these faunas, and argue that they are comprised of an endemic ‘core’ supplemented with various immigration waves. These faunas lived on an island archipelago, and we describe how this insular setting led to ecological peculiarities such as low diversity, a preponderance of primitive taxa, and marked changes in morphology (particularly body size dwarfing). We conclude by discussing the importance of the European record in understanding the end-Cretaceous extinction and show that there is no clear evidence that dinosaurs or other groups were undergoing long-term declines in Europe prior to the bolide impact.

No abstract

No abstract

What the body temperature and thermoregulation processes of extinct vertebrates were are central questions for understanding their ecology and evolution. The thermophysiologic status of the great marine reptiles is still unknown, even though some studies have suggested that thermoregulation may have contributed to their exceptional evolutionary success as apex predators of Mesozoic aquatic ecosystems. We tested the thermal status of ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs by comparing the oxygen isotope compositions of their tooth phosphate to those of coexisting fish. Data distribution reveals that these large marine reptiles were able to maintain a constant and high body temperature in oceanic environments ranging from tropical to cold temperate. Their estimated body temperatures, in the range from 35 degrees +/- 2 degrees C to 39 degrees +/- 2 degrees C, suggest high metabolic rates required for predation and fast swimming over large distances offshore.

No abstract

No abstract

We describe a new species of lungfish, Ferganoceratodus martini sp. nov. , based on a single specimen discovered in the Late Jurassic -Early Cretaceous of the Phu Nam Jun locality, north-eastern Thailand. The material comprises an almost complete skull roof with associated upper and lower jaws, as well as some postcranial remains. F. martini shows characters unexpected and/or unknown in other Mesozoic lungfishes, such as pieces of a 'hard snout'. The microstructure of the 'hard snout' provides support to the Bemis and Northcutt interpretation of the cosmine tissue of Palaeozoic lungfishes as homologous to the complex cutaneous vasculature of the living Neoceratodus . Because the homologies of the ossifications of the skull roof among lungfishes and among piscian sarcopterygians are unsatisfactorily understood, we use a topological nomenclature in the description of the specimen and in the discussion of post-Devonian dipnoan skull roof characters. We define a few characters for the cladistic analysis only, but these are regarded as less theory-laden. We propose a hypothesis of phylogenetic relationships for most of the post-Devonian forms known by skull remains. The main feature is the ancient dichotomy between the Neoceratodus lineage and most of the other Mesozoic forms, including the Lepidosirenids. The palaeobiogeographical pattern shows a series of vicariant events between Laurasia and Gondwana in the Late Triassic -Early Jurassic, followed by a vicariant event between Africa and South America.