The Stratigraphic ColumnBy Brian Huber

International Foraminiferal DiplomacyDuring this past May two large wooden crates containing accurate marble sculptures of the

benthic foraminifera Buzasina ringens (Brady) and Ishamella apertura Buzas were shipped from the Institute of Oceanology in Qingdao, China to the Department of Paleobiology by China’s leading foraminiferalologist, Dr. Zheng Shouyi to “promote friendly exchanges” between our two institutes. The sculptures are accurate representations of benthic foraminifera genera that were named in honor of Dr. Martin Buzas, Emeritus Curator in Paleobiology, and Larry Isham, who spent his career in Paleobiology

The world’s only Foraminiferal Sculpture Park, which is located in Zhongshan, China.

Dr. Zheng Shouyi (Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) with the “Foram Tree” that hangs 120 models of Paleozoic through modern benthic and planktonic foraminifera. The foram lab (E-112B) has a tree that was donated by Dr. Shouyi last year.

as a natural history artist and drew 100s of very accurate charcoal illustrations of foraminifera. This donation followed an earlier gift to Marty Buzas of a 1.9 m high “foram tree” that has 120 palm-sized models of foraminifera that Dr. Shouyi hand-designed as a popular educational and exhibition tool. The sculptures are replicas of forms that were included in the world’s first Foraminiferal Sculpture Park that Dr. Shouyi created in her hometown of Zhongshan in Guangdong Province. Located on a hillside covering an area of several acres, the park is populated by 114 sculptures of Paleozoic to modern foraminiferal species carved of marble, granite and sandstone and it includes a foram-like spirally shaped museum that displays the history and usefulness of forams in academic and industrial research. Believe it or not, the foram park has become quite a popular destination for the local populace and international tourists!

The Department of Paleobiology NewsletterSpring 2015 Volume 25 Number 2

Department of Paleobiology Website: http://www.paleobiology.si.edu

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So what should we do with two 300-400 pound foram sculptures? Fortunately, the lead horticulturalist of the SI Gardens, James Gagliardi, is keen to add them to the living fossil botanical garden that he installed on the islands at the north entrance of NMNH. Assuming we get final approval from the NMNH Director, the sculptures will join some fossil ammonites on the north side of both islands. Eventually interpretive labels will be added to explain the international goodwill gesture from our Institute of Oceanology colleague and the significance of the sculptures in studies of modern and ancient marine environments. What a fine way to introduce visitors to the beautiful architecture of foraminiferal shells and also honor two of Paleobiology’s world renowned staff!

Marty Buzas and Brian Huber next to a crate containing a crate containing a sculpture of Buzasina ringens, one of two benthic foraminferal sculptures that were donated by a col-league in Qingdao, China.

Collections ManagementKathy Hollis, Holly Little, Amanda Millhouse

and Jennifer Strotman attended the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) 30th annual meeting hosted by the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, FL. This year’s theme was “Making Natural History Collections Accessible through New and Innovative Approaches and Partnerships.”

Amanda gave a well-attended presentation titled “Fossil Exhibit Evolution and Survival of the Fittest Collections Management Plans: Managing the Collections De-installation of the Fossil Halls.” The presentation focused on the planning and implementation of de-installing fossils in the halls, as well as the planned

Holly Little, Amanda Millhouse, Kathy Hollis, and Jennifer Strotman in route to the SPNHC meeting.

move into the new East Wing Ground storage space and the obstacles Amanda continues to face while reconciling all the data associated with the exhibit specimens.

Jennifer presented a poster titled “NMNH Paleobiology Registration: Past, Present and Future”. Using data pulled from the SI Collections Data Reporting System and EMu Kathy, Mark and Jennifer were able to generate graphs depicting the different types of transactions and the rate in which they were reconciled from 1987 to present. They were able to show that adding a task orientated staff member makes a large impact on reducing Paleo’s transaction backlog. Along with these data, they compiled important Collections Management staffing numbers that will aid in future staffing plans. Jennifer was able to collaborate at great length with fellow NMNH collections management/registrar colleagues on dunning workflows and lessons learned. The poster is hanging outside of E-201 – come check it out!

Holly attended the “3D Digitization of Fossils for Educators and Citizen Scientists” workshop hosted by iDigBio and the FOSSIL Project in Gainesville, FL. The workshop was designed to foster discussions between educators, scientists, and collections professionals about the use of 3D imaging and printing technologies in the classroom. Holly was invited to present on 3D fossil resources and materials available from the Smithsonian. She shared materials from Cerro Ballena, a project led by Nick Pyenson (cerroballena.si.edu) and discussed current

Amanda, Holly, and Jennifer at the SPNHC banquet, held this year at the University of Florida Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (aka “The Swamp”)

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FossiLabBy Abby Telfer

This spring, nine FossiLab volunteers have been occupied with rehousing the Marine Mammal Type Collection. Dave Bohaska provided reprints of many of the original descriptions, allowing us to check the specimens against the old drawings and photos before we rehouse them. Not only has this facilitated repairs, but it’s also helped us figure out sensible layouts for the bones.

3D work being done in the paleobiology collections. She also demoed the SI X 3D model viewer (3d.si.edu) and explained methods for students to use to do their own 3D digitization of fossils.

Peter Finkel at work on an archival storage tray and Lynn Russo identifying fragments of vertebrae.

Below, the ribs of Squalodon calvertensis (USNM 10484) as they were figured by Remington Kellogg in 1923 (left) and as they were rehoused (right).

Two other large projects, photographing the Green River Formation Fossil Insect Collection for Finnegan Marsh and Conrad Labandeira and picking microvertebrates for Matt Carrano, are benefiting from the recent addition of several new volunteers to the lab. Live video from the microscopes and accompanying slide shows of specimens make both of these projects highly visible and popular with visitors.

FossiLab volunteer Chip Ohlhaver continues to build storage jackets - an activity that’s not possible in the temporary lab - in the VP Lab on the ground floor. Recently, he’s been teaching the craft to Carlos Peredo, a George Mason graduate student of Mark Uhen’s working with Nick Pyenson, and to VP Lab contractors Alan Zdinak and Aaron Gitterman.

Carlos and Chip about to update an old storage jacket for a whale skull.

Finally, FossiLab helped Hilary-Morgan Watt, from the Office of Public Affairs, inaugurate an occasional program of live-streamed video interviews from the Museum. Hilary-Morgan spoke with Deep Time postdoc Antoine Bercovici and George Mason graduate student Advait as they worked at their microscopes, and relayed the videos onto Twitter via her phone. Both interviews generated excited comments from viewers, and Hilary-Morgan has continued the program, recently recording an Interview with Hans Sues.

Hilary-Morgan Watt and Antoine Bercovici

Advait Jukar

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Vertebrate PaleontologySteve Jabo co-convened the 2nd International

Conservation Symposium-Workshop for Natural History Collections in Barcelona, Spain, on May 6 – 9. His co-convenors were Sandra Val (Centre Resauracio Interpretacio Paleontologioca - CRIP) and Vicen Carrio (National Museums, Scotland). Chris Collins (at the time from National History Museum of London) was

Group photo of the attendees at the Pati Manning-Auditorio, Diputacio de Barcelona.

Convenors and Barcelona city education officials greet the attendees.

another co-convenor, but could not attend the conference due to an injury. The conference was well attended by conservators from several countries, including: Israel, Denmark, UK, Italy, France, Switzerland, Portugal, as well as Spain and the US. There were two days of talks and posters, covering topics such as microclimate conditions within collections, in situ conservation of

hominid footprints, materials testing, ultrasonic cleaning, GIS tracking, and much more. The final day consisted of workshops where attendees could get hands-on training in histological work, the effects of water-soluble salts on porous materials, leather and parchment conservation treatment, and adhesives and consolidants.

Adhesives workshop – Vicen Carrio provides instruction and information on various adhesives and consolidants.

Montserrat – “Saw Mountain” in Catalan. A beautiful geo-logic formation in eastern Spain, where the Centre Resauracio Interpretacio Paleontologioca is located and is also the site of the Benedictine abbey, Santa Maria de Montserrat.

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Local townsfolk build a human tower, which is a MAJOR source of local pride and in which there are many competitions through-out Catalonia.

Then, of course, there was the fact that it took place in Barcelona, a beautiful city with a deep and rich history. Side trips were taken to different Antoni Gaudí structures around the city (like La Sagrada Familia, Parc Güell, and Casa Batlló), the beach, and the incredible Museu d’Historia de la Ciutat de Barcelona, which explores the archeology of the city – over 4000 sq. m. underground – beginning in 12 BC). The final meal too place at the foothills of Montserrat at the CRIP facility and included the local townsfolk dancing, building human towers and cooking huge vats of paella for the attendees. It was a very informative, beautiful conference, and Steve is looking forward for the 3rd International Conference in two years.

Bob Purdy, Fred Grady, and Dave Bohaska traveled to Aurora, NC, on May 23rd for the 22nd annual Aurora Fossil Festival, always held on Memorial Day Saturday. The day before we joined a large group from the Friends of the Aurora Fossil Museum and a small

Dave Bohaska and Joel Harden in the Martin-Marietta Bel-grade Quarry, North Carolina.

University of Florida group in the Martin Marietta Belgrade Quarry to look through spoil piles of Upper Oligocene-Lower Miocene. Most of the vertebrates are shark and ray teeth, but marine mammals and a very few terrestrial mammals have been found there.

At the opening ceremony Bob was crowned (well, tee-shirted the 22nd Fossil Master); at noon he lead the parade in a Corvette.

Our primary duty is identifying fossils, and anything else brought in, to our tables. Many old friends stopped by, including some from fossil fairs and field work predating the Aurora event. Dave also presented his “Fossils of Calvert Cliffs” lecture. The Friends organization provided funding for some of our expenses (and a pork barbeque dinner); Phosphate Corp provided lodging in a company house.

Fred Grady, Becky Hyne (long time friend), and Bob Purdy identifying fossils at the Festival.

On returning home, Dave attended a “Citizen Science” event at the Calvert Marine Museum, Solomons, Maryland, Memorial Day Monday and the next day, focusing on Calvert Cliffs, and the value of the contributions of amateurs to paleontology. There were

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several lectures, including “Field Notes: Best Practices” by Dave. There were field trips to several localities along the Cliffs both afternoons.

PaleobotanyBill DiMichele and Dan Chaney went to

southern Utah to the Valley of the Gods area to work in the Halgaito Formation, with a group of people interested in various topics all of which have a unique component in understanding the paleoecology of the region. Dave Berman, Amy Henrici, (Carnegie Museum of Natural History) were involved in the collection of vertebrate material from a quarry in the middle part of the Halgaito Formation. They successfully extracted 4 blocks of material that will be prepared back at Carnegie, it is not known yet what they collected but the blocks were full of vertebrates. Martin Gibling and Dawn Tobey (Dalhousie

Panorama of unnamed oxbow cutoff. Shafer Limestone (SL) capping rim and top of cone. The San Juan River (SJR) is not visible in this image. The Paradox Formation (PX) is Pennsylvanian as is the Honaker Trail Fm (HT). The Shafer Limeston (SL) is the nominal Pen/Perm boundary with the Halgaito (HO) being the lowest Permian unit in this area.

A) Google Earth image of oxbow cutoff. Red dot approxi-mate location from which the panorama was taken.

B) Portion of San Juan Hill 7.5’ topographic map showing same oxbow cut off feature in southeastern Utah. Red dot as in A.

University) were involved in sedimentalogical studies of the plant and vertebrate producing channels in the Halgaito. John Nelson and Scott Elrick (Illinois State Geological Survey) retuned to map the geology and place the vertebrate and pant bearing channels in a tighter stratigraphic framework. Blaine Cecil (USGS retired) is perusing his study of chert formation in marine and non-marine settings. Bill and Dan were there to explore for more plant deposits, though the results of that were limited a much better understanding of the geology and the position of the deposits was obtained.

As far as basic geologic features that we saw, by far the most interesting is where the San Juan River cuts through the Lime Ridge portion of the Raplee Anticline, this geomorphic feature is more interesting than the well known Goose Necks further west. This unnamed feature was also key to understanding the area’s geology.

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The top of the cone in the cut off is 5031’ and the rim is the same. Both held up by the Shafer Limestone (SL). Some rubble fills the base of the oxbow but the highest elevation in the floor of the oxbow is about 4480’. The river is currently 4190’ Thus since the cut off occurred the river has cut down approximately another 290’. The feature is slightly oval and is 1 mile across in the east-west long axis dimension.

The lower part of the Halgaito consists of interbedded shaley and very finely laminated, appearing to be massive on outcrop, loess deposits. Though we don’t know what type of plants they were there are many deeply rooted plants that sent “tap” roots from the shaley layers on which they were growing through the loessites to obtain water.

Arden Bashforth, formerly a Postdoctoral Fellow with Bill DiMichele and now SI Research Collaborator, recently received an Arthur James Boucot Research Grant from the Paleontological Society. Arden is currently a Visiting Research Scholar at the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and will use the funds to continue his quantitative and paleoecological research based on Pennsylvanian plant-fossil collections held at the ISGS.

Out of place block of loessite with tap root distribution shown by the holes and the white reduction haloes around the root traces.

Paleo Art

From left to right: Beryl E. Taylor, Ted Galusha (both of the American Museum of Natural History) and Dan Chaney. This photo was taken in the panhandle of western Nebraska on the Pine Ridge south of Chadron. Dan was a rising high school sophomore (1965) and this was the first summer he was paid to collect fossils. Congrats to Dan for fifty years of collecting!

Volunteer Brenton McMenamin unframed a set of 5 small paintings of marine mammals to find out why the frame was so heavy. He discovered that the paintings were prepared on thick, dense blocks of boxwood. The paintings were signed backwards and the embossed

stamp “N. J. Wemmer & Son” (a printing company and boxwood dealer) appears on the back of one of the blocks. For these reasons, Mary Parrish believes that the drawings would eventually have been engraved and printed, though they are not yet cut. The drawings were prepared by Henry Wood Elliott (1846 – 1930), Smithsonian artist and naturalist, whose illustrated books and articles were instrumental in advancing early conservation efforts to save the fur seals of the arctic region from over hunting. Paleo has 31 Henry Wood

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Invertebrate Paleontology

While rummaging through old drawings Mary found another classic - this one by our very own Skip Lyles, drawn for Dr. Richard Benson about 20 years ago. Now that’s imagining Deep Time!

Elliott illustrations of arctic marine mammals, humans, and maps, and 3 exquisite plates of fossil invertebrates, which were prepared for the first paleontologist of the Smithsonian, Fielding Bradford Meek.

Mary had this reconstruction of a temnospondyl amphibian chasing a beetle (along with 5 other color reconstructions) published in Carboniferous-Permian Transition in the Robledo Mountains, Southern New Mexico (Lucas and DiMichele, eds.), 2015, Bulletin 65, NMMNHS. The fossil remains consisted only of the salamander’s trackway and beetles’ burrows. The animals were inferred from material of the same age from other fossil localities.

Also by Skip Lyles, a caricature of Paleo’s first Collection Manager --- Fred Collier.

Marty Buzas has just been awarded The Micropalaeontological Society’s Brady Medal. The Medal is awarded to scientists who have had a major influence on micropaleontology by means of a substantial body of excellent research. John Murray and Steve Culver nominated him for the Medal which will be awarded at the November meeting of The Micropalaeontological Society, University of Liverpool, England.

The Brady Medal

Conrad Labandeira traveled to Philadelphia on February 27 with doctoral students Gussie McCracken (University of Maryland, College Park) and Qingqing Xu (Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou) to attend the twenty-third meeting of the Geobiology Symposium, held at the University of Pennsylvania. Gussie presented Plant–insect interactions of Late Cretaceous Laramidia, western North America. Gussie’s talk provided preliminary background on her work toward assessing the latitudinal distribution of plant–insect interactions of the Late Cretaceous in the Western Interior. Qingqing provided Plant–insect associations from an earliest Permian flora from north-Central Texas. The flora that Qingqing is working on consists of perhaps the most interesting herbivorized flora from the early Permian of north-central Texas, and has high specimen numbers, modest plant diversity and preferential insect targeting of particular plant hosts. Conrad presented The Messel food web from the mid Eocene of central-western Germany, which featured a highly resolved analysis of the trophic relationships of a forty-seven million-year-old, exceptionally preserved terrestrial and lacustrine deposit.

Conrad was invited to provide an overview of his work in China at The Rise of Modern Biodiversity – A Workshop Addressing Critical Transitions in the History of Life, a meeting organized by Zhe-Xi Luo, Pat Herendeen, Kasey Mennie and Peter Makovicky, held during April 3 to 6 at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The workshop was to bring Chinese and U.S. researchers to share their research, with a focus on the terrestrial fossil record, and was overwhelmingly represented by vertebrate paleontologists on both sides of

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the Pacific. Conrad’s talk was “The surprisingly modern aspect of insect herbivory, pollination and mimicry during the mid-Mesozoic of northeastern China”, and focused on recent discoveries regarding plant–insect associations and trophic relationships that the Capital Normal University team and I have described over the past several years. After Conrad was back in the United States, he worked with David Dilcher on April 29 to continue the assessment of the leaf mines from the Early Cretaceous Dakota Formation of Nebraska and Kansas.

From May 1 to May 24, Conrad was mostly at Capital Normal University (CNU) in Beijing, working with students Qiaoling Ding, Qingmin Meng and Xiaodan Lin on a variety of projects, including insect herbivory of bennettitalean foliage and determining the ovipositional and feeding damage on Williamsonia and Weltrichia fructifications from the Middle–Late Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation. He also worked with students on an assessment of the mouthpart structure of several long-proboscid pseudopolycentropodids and mesopsychid insects from latest Early Cretaceous Myanmar Amber. While at CNU, Conrad gave two talks on May 7, the first one, Amber taphonomy, to students in the CNU College of Life Sciences. The second talk was at the Forestry Institute in Beijing, on the other side of the city, where there was a vast documentation of cut-away features revealing the borings in woods of various trees native to eastern Eurasia. Each beautifully chiseled out boring had links to larvae (in alcohol) and adults (pinned) of their respective borers in the insect collections. The talk was “A journey of 402 million years of terrestrial ecosystem evolution through the lens of plant–insect interactions”. Several days later Conrad took the bullet train with several students to Changzhou, in the southern part of the country, to examine additional horsetail, fern,

Qingmin Meng (left) and Qiaoling Ding (behind), with Conrad at Mr. Cai’s Museum in Changzhou, China.

From left to right: students Qingmin Meng and Qiaoling Ding, yours truly, and students Xiaofeng Lin and Longfeng Li—out on an excursion visiting the local dinosaurs in Changzhou, China.

ginkgophyte, seedfern, bennettitalean and gnetalean material. Over several days, all of the remaining 1500 or so plant slabs from Mr. Cai’s fossil museum were identified, damage typed, photographed and entered into a database. Another student, Longfeng Li, also assisted in damage typing, and will be arriving this summer at the Labandeira Lab to work on mid Mesozoic parasitoid wasps from Eurasia. Longfeng will solve the riddle of the origin of the wasp waist. The thin, petiolate wasp waist is a key innovation that have may have played a prominent role in the diversification of the Hymenoptera.

On June 1, Fahimeh Rahavan, an intern from the University of San Francisco, began her work with Qingqing on digitizing the total and herbivorized leaf area for all specimens in the Williamson Drive Flora of north-central Texas. Thamiris dos Santos (an intern from the University of New Mexico) and Isabella Muratore (an NHRE intern from Haverford College in Pennsylvania) are working together on the Sazenbacher Flora of north-central Texas.

Fahimeh Rahavan

Thamiris dos Santos and Isabella Muratore

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On June 10, Hilary Morgan Watt discussed with Conrad the natural history and fossil record of resins and amber in preparation to the release of Jurassic World. Also on June 10, and through June 17, Ian McKay from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, dropped by to examine specimens from the Green River fossil insect collection.

During the 16 to 18 of June Conrad traveled to Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He examined about twenty-four Mazon Creek insects, of which eight were loaned for probable use in the Deep Time Exhibition. Conrad’s host was collections manager Ricardo Pérez de-la-Fuente, who has a common interest in the insects of Early Cretaceous Álava Amber from northern Spain. However, it is pretty daunting to loan material for thirty-five years—the lifetime of the Deep Time Exhibition—and hope that I still be around to see the return of the loan.

ChungKun Shih of Capital Normal University, in Beijing, visited Conrad on June 20 to discuss student projects in common. Conrad did a stint at Q?irius on June 25, where he discussed the fossil record and epidemiology of pathogens, particularly as they related to breaches in the plant host’s epidermis as a consequence of insect herbivory.

The Hunt lab welcomes two new members for the summer. Colin Sweeney is working with João Martins and Gene on a project exploring sexual selection in living and fossil ostracodes. Colin recently graduated with a biology degree from the College of William and Mary. Elizabeth Sibert is a pre-doctoral fellow and PhD candidate from the University of California San Diego. Her dissertation research focuses on the record of fish teeth and denticles from deep-sea cores, and she is working with Gene to develop models to understand the evolution of teeth morphotaxa from the late Cretaceous through the Eocene.

Colin Sweeney

Elizabeth Sibert

Loren Petruny and Elizabeth Tedder traveled to Italy on June 3rd – 22nd for the 8th course of the International School on Foraminifera hosted in the medieval town of Urbino, Italy at the Collegio Internazionale di Urbino. This intensive course provided an overview of the taxonomy, ecology, biodiversity and geological history of foraminifera. It featured an introduction to foraminifera as well as modules focused on the taxonomy and biostratigraphy of larger and smaller benthonic and planktonic foraminifera. Students enjoyed morning lectures followed by shorter afternoon lectures that were typically accompanied by microscope lab exercises. It was taught by an array of notable international lecturers including F. Gradstein, J. Ogg, M.A. Kaminski, C. Cetean, J. Nagy, D. Foy, J. Hohenegger, J. Pawlowski, F. Frontalini, A, Sabbatini, A. Briguglio, G.W. Hughes, L. Alegret, S. Kender. M. Kucera, M.R. Petrizzo and V. Mikhalevich.

Loren and Elizabeth had the opportunity to present their current research as part of a student symposium. Loren also gave an additional talk detailing the extensive Cushman collection housed in NMNH

Course participants on the field trip at an outcrop showing the famous Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary.

Elizabeth and Loren at the Cenomanian-Turonian anoxic event boundary.

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Loren and Elizabeth enjoying the picturesque views of Urbino from the Parco della Resistenza.

as well as information about the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research. Students also took part in a spectacular field trip through the Marche-Umbria region that featured stops at the Cenomanian-Turonian and the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundaries.

Highlights of the walled city of Urbino included friendly locals, picturesque views from Parco della Resistenza, which overlooks the city center, ancient churches including the Cattedrale di Urbino, Raphael’s childhood home, the spectacular ducal palace and art

gallery and the medieval Fort Albornoz. Loren and Elizabeth are excited to put everything they learned during this course to good use working in the NMNH foraminiferal lab this summer.

Loren is the Secretary/Treasurer of the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and Elizabeth is a summer contractor working for Brian Huber in the foraminiferal lab. Both are Master’s students at George Mason University.

Department PublicationsAiello, B. R., Iriarte-Diaz, J., Blob, R. W.,

Butcher, M. T., Carrano, M. T., Espinoza, N. R., Main, R. P. and Ross, C. F. 2015. Bone strain magnitude is correlated with bone strain rate in tetrapods: implications for models of mechanotransduction. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 282(1810) doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.0321

Ando, Atsushi. 2015. Intersite discrepancy in the amplitude of marine negative ?13C excursion at the onset of early Aptian oceanic anoxic event 1a: Reconciliation through Sr isotopic screening of peculiar diagenetic overprint on the Pacific reference section (Deep Sea Drilling Project Site 463). Geological Society of America Special Papers, 511: SPE511-17. doi:10.1130/2015.2511(17)

DiMichele, William A. 2015. A compositionally unique voltzian conifer-callipterid flora from a carbonate-filled channel, Lower Permian, Robledo Mountains, New Mexico, and its broader significance. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, 65: 123-128.

Doorenweerd, C., van Nieukerken, E.J., Sohn, J.-C., and Labandeira, C.C. (2015) A revised checklist of Nepticulidae fossils (Lepidoptera) indicates an Early Cretaceous origin. Zootaxa, 3963(3): 295–334.

Erwin, D. H. 2015. A public goods approach to major evolutionary innovations. Geobiology, (forthcoming). doi:10.1111/gbi.12137

Falcon-Lang, Howard, Lucas, Spencer G., Kerp, Hans, Krainer, Karl, Montañez, Isabel P., Vachard, Daniel, Chaney, Dan S., Elrick, Scott D., Contreras, Dori L., Kurzawe, Francine, DiMichele, William A. and Looy, Cindy V. 2015. Early Permian (Asselian) vegetation from a seasonally dry coast in western equatorial Pangaea: Paleoecology and evolutionary significance. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, (forthcoming). doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2015.05.010

Finnegan, Seth, Anderson, Sean C., Harnik, Paul G., Simpson, Carl, Tittensor, Derek P., Byrnes, Jarrett E., Finkel, Zoe V., Lindberg, David R., Liow, Lee Hsiang, Lockwood, Rowan, Lotze, Heike K., McClain, Craig R., McGuire, Jenny L., O’Dea, Aaron and Pandolfi, John M. 2015. Extinctions. Paleontological baselines for evaluating extinction risk in the modern oceans. Science (New York, N.Y.), 348(6234): 567-570. doi:10.1126/science.aaa6635

Haug, J.T., C.C. Labandeira, Santiago-Blay, J.A., Haug, C., and Brown, S., 2015. A 311 million-year-old insect larva: life habits and role of Hox genes in early Holometabola. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 15: in press, doi: 10.1186/s12862-015-0428-8

Hunt, Gene, Hopkins, Melanie J. and Lidgard, Scott. 2015. Simple versus complex models of trait evolution and stasis as a response to environmental change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(16): 4885-4890. doi:10.1073/pnas.1403662111

Kelley, Neil P. and Pyenson, Nicholas D. 2015. Evolutionary innovation and ecology in marine tetrapods from the Triassic to the Anthropocene. Science, 348(6232). doi:10.1126/science.aaa3716

Ksepka, Daniel T., Parham, James F., Allman, James F., Benton, Michael J., Carrano, Matthew T., Cranston, Karen A., Donoghue, Philip C. J., Head, Jason J., Hermsen, Elizabeth J., Irmis, Randall B., Joyce, Walter G., Kohli, Manpreet, Lamm, Kristin S., Leehr,

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Permian-Jurassic continental tetrapod assemblages from the Fundy rift basin, eastern Canada. Atlantic Geology, 51: 139-205. doi:10.4138/atlgeol.2015.006

Vogl, A. W., Lillie, Margo A., Piscitelli, Marina A., Goldbogen, Jeremy A., Pyenson, Nicholas D. and Shadwick, Robert E. 2015. Stretchy nerves are an essential component of the extreme feeding mechanism of rorqual whales. Current Biology: CB, 25(9): R360-R361. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.03.007

Wagner, Peter J. and Estabrook, George F. 2015. The Implications of Stratigraphic Compatibility for Character Integration among Fossil Taxa. Systematic Biology, (forthcoming). doi:10.1093/sysbio/syv040

Wong, William O., Dilcher, David Leonard, Labandeira, Conrad C., Sun, Ge and Fleischmann, Andreas. 2015. Early Cretaceous Archaeamphora is not a carnivorous angiosperm. Frontiers in Plant Science, 6(326). doi:10.3389/fpls.2015.00326

Dan, Patané, José S. L., Polly, P. D., Phillips, Matthew J., Smith, N. A., Smith, Nathan D., Tuinen, Marcel van, Ware, Jessica L. and Warnock, Rachel C. M. 2015. The Fossil Calibration Database, A New Resource for Divergence Dating. Systematic Biology, (forthcoming) doi:10.1093/sysbio/syv025

Lapolla, J. S. & Greenwalt, D. E. (2015). Fossil Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of the Middle Eocene Kishenehn Formation. Sociobiology 62(2): 163-174.

Lucas, Spencer G., Krainer, Karl, DiMichele, William A., Voigt, Sebastian, Berman, David, Henrici, Amy C., Tanner, Lawrence H., Chaney, Dan S., Elrick, Scott D., Nelson, W. J. and Rinehart, Larry F. 2015. The Upper Paleozoic Sangre de Cristo Formation, Southwestern San Miguel County, New Mexico: Stratigraphy, Age and Sedimentology. 2015 New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting April 24, 2015, Macey Center, New Mexico Tech Campus, Socorro, NM.

Padian, Kevin and Sues, Hans-Dieter. 2015. The age of transformation: the Triassic Period and the rise of today’s land vertebrate fauna. In: Dial, K. P., Shubin, N. and Brainerd, E. L., Great Transformations in Vertebrate Evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp.349-372.

Schoch, Rainer and Sues, Hans-Dieter. 2015. A Middle Triassic stem-turtle and the evolution of the turtle body plan. Nature, (forthcoming). doi:10.1038/nature14472

Slater, Graham J. 2015. Iterative adaptive radiations of fossil canids show no evidence for diversity-dependent trait evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(16): 4897-4902. doi:10.1073/pnas.1403666111

Smith, Felisa A., Lyons, S. K., Wagner, Peter and Elliott, Scott M. 2015. The importance of considering animal body mass in IPCC greenhouse inventories and the underappreciated role of wild herbivores. Global Change Biology, (forthcoming). doi:10.1111/gcb.12973

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