Records of the past climate and vegetation of Australia are frequently constructed using data generated from the analysis of pollen and pteridophyte spores alone, or in association with sedimentology. We demonstrate that the organic residue prepared for pollen analysis yields other organic-walled microfossils that can be used to provide additional and independent palaeoenvironmental information. These non-pollen palynomorphs (NPP) include microscopic remains of algae, cyanobacteria, fungi, insects, other invertebrates and cormophytes. Our study of the NPP from two Late Quaternary lake records from western Victoria, Australia, provided additional information on water quality, salinity, depth, temperature and nutrient levels to the general environmental interpretation derived from pollen data. From a review of the ecological preferences of taxa, and comparison of the NPP results with pollen and spore curves from the lake records, ecological indicator values were derived. The study confirms the utility of NPP in enhancing environmental reconstructions in Australia, and encourages their routine examination in palynological studies.

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We analyzed intestinal contents of two late-glacial mastodons preserved in lake sediments in Ohio (Burning Tree mastodon) and Michigan (Heisler mastodon). A multi-proxy suite of macrofossils and microfossils provided unique insights into what these individuals had eaten just before they died and added significantly to knowledge of mastodon diets. We reconstructed the mastodons’ habitats with similar multi-proxy analyses of the embedding lake sediments. Non-pollen palynomorphs, especially spores of coprophilous fungi differentiated intestinal and environmental samples. The Burning Tree mastodon gut sample originates from the small intestine. The Heisler mastodon sample is part of the large intestine to which humans had added clastic material to anchor parts of the carcass under water to cache the meat. Both carcasses had been dismembered, suggesting that the mastodons had been hunted or scavenged, in line with other contemporaneous mastodon finds and the timing of early human incursion into the Midwest. Both mastodons lived in mixed coniferous-deciduous late-glacial forests. They browsed tree leaves and twigs, especially Picea. They also ate sedge-swamp plants and drank the lake water. Our multi-proxy estimates for a spring/summer season of death contrast with autumn estimates derived from prior tusk analyses. We document the recovered fossil remains with photographs.

Butterflies of the genus Maniola are known for their large morphological variation, at the inter- as well as intraspecific level. Given the overlap in wing-patterns, habitat selection, and geographic distribution of various Maniola species, genitalia morphology is sometimes the only possibility to tell specimen apart. In this paper we describe diagnostic characters to distinguish different Maniola species by means of their genitalia. Included is also the first detailed description and illustration of the genitalia apparatus of the Sardinian endemic Maniola nurag. Further, we describe two Sardinian individuals with intermediate characteristics between Maniola nurag and Maniola jurtina, and propose that they are hybrids. Further, we shortly discuss the justification ofthe species status for the island endemics Maniola chia and Maniola cypricola.