Ben Creisler
Some recent non-dino papers that may be of interest:
Panraogallus hezhengensis gen. et sp. nov.
Zhiheng Li, Julia A. Clarke, Chad M. Eliason, Thomas A. Stidham, Tao Deng & Zhonghe Zhou (2018)
Vocal specialization through tracheal elongation in an extinct Miocene pheasant from China.
Scientific Reports 8, Article number: 8099 (2018)
doi:10.1038/s41598-018-26178-x
Modifications to the upper vocal tract involving hyper-elongated tracheae have evolved many times within crown birds, and their evolution has been linked to a âsize exaggerationâ hypothesis in acoustic signaling and communication, whereby smaller-sized birds can produce louder sounds. A fossil skeleton of a new extinct species of wildfowl (Galliformes: Phasianidae) from the late Miocene of China, preserves an elongated, coiled trachea that represents the oldest fossil record of this vocal modification in birds and the first documentation of its evolution within pheasants. The phylogenetic position of this species within Phasianidae has not been fully resolved, but appears to document a separate independent origination of this vocal modification within Galliformes. The fossil preserves a coiled section of the trachea and other remains supporting a tracheal length longer than the birdâs body. This extinct species likely produced vocalizations with a lower fundamental frequency and reduced harmonics compared to similarly-sized pheasants. The independent evolution of this vocal feature in galliforms living in both open and closed habitats does not appear to be correlated with other factors of biology or its open savanna-like habitat. Features present in the fossil that are typically associated with sexual dimorphism suggest that sexual selection may have resulted in the evolution of both the morphology and vocalization mechanism in this extinct species.
News:
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From a forthcoming volume on bird evolution:
Awengkere magnanatis gen. & sp. nov.
Trevor H. Worthy & Adam M. Yates (2017)
A review of the smaller birds from the late Miocene Alcoota local faunas of Australia with a description of a new species.
La evoluciÃn de las aves. Contribuciones del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia" 7: 221â252Â
Only available as a photocopy online. (Regrettably, the scan slipped in a few places, cutting off the bottom part of the text on some pages.)
The Alcoota Local Fauna, in the Northern Territory, Australia is the most important late Miocene vertebrate fossil site in Australia. It derives from the Waite Formation a fluvio-lacustrine series deposited 9-7 Ma and is associated with a second, slightly younger (7-6 Ma) and more depauperate fauna, the Ongeva LF. These local faunas are well known for the presence of giant mihirung birds (Dromornithidae: Dromornis stirtoni, Ilbandornis woodburnei, I. lawsoni) and many mammals, but smaller birds have yet to be reported. Here we review the smaller bird fossils from the Alcoota and Ongeva local faunas reporting nine taxa from 26 specimens representing two anatids, one described as new, two phoenicopterids, a ciconiid, two accipitrids, an anhingid and a charadriiform. They indicate the presence of water deep enough for diving birds and marginal wading habitats.
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Note: Some additional papers from the volume are mentioned online but I don't have links or abstracts.
R. I. Vezzosi & J.I. Noriega (2018)
About the systematic status of an old and forgotten specimen of terror bird (Phorusrhacidae: Mesembriornithinae) from the Miocene of Northwestern Argentina.
La evoluciÃn de las Aves: Contribuciones del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia" 7: 69-77
earlier conference abstract.
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Nadia Soledad Haidr & Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche (2017)Â
Fossil penguin beaks from the Eocene of Antarctica: new materials from La Meseta Formation.Â
La evoluciÃn de las aves. Contribuciones del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia" 7: 69â80.
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Hans Recknagel, Nick Kamenos & Kathryn R. Elmer (2018)Â
Common lizards break Dolloâs law of irreversibility: Genome-wide phylogenomics support a single origin of viviparity and re-evolution of oviparity.
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (advance online publication)
Highlights
Common lizards (Zootoca vivipara) have oviparous or viviparous reproductive modes.
Phylogeny supports one origin of viviparity in Zootoca but a reversal to oviparity.
No introgression but little concordance of mitochondrial and genomic phylogenies.
This is the first phylogeny congruent with karyological and eggshell data.
Common lizards are an exception to Dolloâs law of irreversibility.
Abstract
Dolloâs law of irreversibility states that once a complex trait has been lost in evolution, it cannot be regained. It is thought that complex epistatic interactions and developmental constraints impede the re-emergence of such a trait. Oviparous reproduction (egg-laying) requires the formation of an eggshell and represents an example of such a complex trait. In reptiles, viviparity (live-bearing) has evolved repeatedly but it is highly disputed if oviparity has re-evolved. Here, using up to 194,358 SNP loci and 1,334,760 bp of sequence, we reconstruct the phylogeny of viviparous and oviparous lineages of common lizards and infer the evolutionary history of parity modes. Our phylogeny supports six main common lizard lineages that have been previously identified. We find strong statistical support for a topological arrangement that suggests a reversal to oviparity from viviparity. Our topology is consistent with highly differentiated chromosomal configurations between lineages, but disagrees with previous phylogenetic studies in some nodes. While we find high support for a reversal to oviparity, more genomic and developmental data are needed to robustly test this and assess the mechanism by which a reversal might have occurred.
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Jennifer J. Hill, Mark N. Puttick, Thomas L. Stubbs, Emily J. Rayfield & Philip C. J. Donoghue (2018)
Evolution of jaw disparity in fishes
Palaeontology (advance online publication)
The morphology of the vertebrate lower jaw has been used to infer feeding ecology, with transformations in mandibular shape and structure likely to have facilitated the emergence of different feeding behaviours in vertebrate evolution. Here we present elliptical Fourier shape and principal component analyses, characterizing and comparing the disparity of jaw shape in early gnathostomes and their modern primitively aquatic counterparts. 83% of shape variation is summarized on the first three principal component axes and all component clades of early gnathostomes exhibit overlapping morphological variation. Nonâtetrapodomorph Palaeozoic sarcopterygians are more disparate than their extant counterparts whereas extant chondrichthyans are more disparate than their Palaeozoic counterparts. More generally, extant jawed fishes are more disparate than their Palaeozoic relatives largely because of the extensive shape variation exhibited by mandibles of extant actinopterygians. Only some areas of shape space vacated by Palaeozoic gnathostomes have been convergently refilled by living taxa. Characterization of theoretical jaw morphologies demonstrates that fewer than half of all possible shapes are realized by the jawed fishes that comprise our empirical dataset; many of these morphologies are realized by unrepresented terrestrial tetrapods, implying environmental constraint. Our results are incompatible with the early burst model of clade evolution and contradict the hypothesis that maximum disparity is reached early in the evolutionary history of jawed fishes.
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