Some recent non-dino papers not yet mentioned:
Xing Xu, Zhonghe Zhou, Yuan Wang & Min Wang (2020)
Study on the Jehol Biota: Recent advances and future prospects.
Science China Earth Sciences (advance online publication)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-019-9509-3
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11430-019-9509-3
Study on the Jehol Biota: Recent advances and future prospects.
Science China Earth Sciences (advance online publication)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-019-9509-3
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11430-019-9509-3
The Jehol Biota is an Early Cretaceous terrestrial fossil assemblage of paramount significance, and its core distribution areas are western Liaoning, northern Hebei, and southeastern Inner Mongolia. Despite with a research history of more than 150 years, it started yielding important fossils until early 1990s, which include feathered dinosaurs, early birds, early mammals, flower-visiting insects, and early angiosperms. These discoveries have implications for understanding the origins and early evolution of several major organismal groups, as well as the origin and initial formation of modern terrestrial ecosystem. This review presents a brief introduction of the major discoveries, research history, and current understanding of this biota, and also provides future prospects for studying the Jehol Biota.
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Miaoyan Wang & Lida Xing (2020)
A brief review of lizard inclusions in amber.
Biosis: Biological Systems 1(1): 39-53.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37819/biosis.001.01.0050
http://eaapublishing.org/journals/index.php/biosis/article/view/50
Free pdf:
http://eaapublishing.org/journals/index.php/biosis/article/view/50/120
A brief review of lizard inclusions in amber.
Biosis: Biological Systems 1(1): 39-53.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37819/biosis.001.01.0050
http://eaapublishing.org/journals/index.php/biosis/article/view/50
Free pdf:
http://eaapublishing.org/journals/index.php/biosis/article/view/50/120
A total of 82 lizard specimens in amber have been reported around the world to date. Records of lizard inclusions extend from the Cretaceous to the Neogene: (1) Cretaceous lizard inclusions are dominated by Autarchoglossans from Lebanon and a diverse lizard fauna from Myanmar (Burma); (2) Paleogene lizard inclusions are relatively poorly preserved and are dominated by lacertids and gekkonids; (3) Neogene records are the most abundant, dominated by two extant genera, Anolis and Sphaerodactylus. Synthesizing important information from all reported specimens, we suggest that an investigation of lizard inclusions in amber is of great importance for the study of their evolution, community structure and adaptive radiation as well as the origin and evolution of adhesion mechanism in geckos, or the level of ancient faunal diversity.
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Free pdf:
Krister T. Smith, Achim H. Schwermann & Markus Wilmsen (2019)
The oldest articulated mosasaurian remains (earliest Turonian) from Germany
Die Ãltesten artikulierten Mosasaurier-Ãberreste (frÃhestes Turonium) aus Deutschland
Geologie und PalÃontologie in Westfalen 91: 3-23
https://www.lwl.org/wmfn-download/Geologie_und_Palaeontologie_in_Westfalen/GuP_Heft_91_Seite_3-23.pdf
The Turonian was a seminal time in the evolution of Mosasauria, a clade of active lizards that came to dominate Late Cretaceous oceans until their demise at the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary. It saw in that time the mosasauroids increase in body size, become at last fully aquatic, and disperse throughout much of the world, while their sister-group, the long-necked dolichosaurs, largely went extinct. Yet a paucity of fossils from this crucial time obscures the beginning of their radiation. On this background we report the discovery of the oldest articulated mosasaurian remains from continental western Europe, namely from the uppermost Cenomanianâlowermost Turonian Hesseltal Formation near Halle/Westfalen, Germany. We also review the taxonomic allocation of dolichosaur remains â Coniasaurus crassidens and Dolichosaurus longicollis â previously described from a slightly older level at the same locality, the DIMAC quarry. The new specimen derives from the lowermost Turonian Watinoceras bed, comprises an articulated tail and is referred to Mosasauroidea indet. Vertebral proportions suggest some adaptation away from the primitive anguilliform mode of propulsion and toward greater capacity for sustained swimming. Deductions based on degree of articulation and palaeoenvironment suggest that the animal died far out at sea, which is consistent with improved swimming abilities as well. In contrast, the previously described dolichosaur material comprises exclusively isolated bones or bone fragments, which may have been transported some distance to the site during a phase when the sea-level was lower. The new find highlights the potential of the Hesseltal Formation generally and especially the DIMAC quarry to produce important vertebrate fossils that may throw further light on early mosasaurian evolution.ÂÂ
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Michael C. Granatosky (2020)
Testing the propulsive role of m. peroneus longus during quadrupedal walking in Varanus exanthematicus.
Journal of Experimental Zoology Part A: Ecological and Integrative Physiology (advance online publication)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jez.2361
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jez.2361
Testing the propulsive role of m. peroneus longus during quadrupedal walking in Varanus exanthematicus.
Journal of Experimental Zoology Part A: Ecological and Integrative Physiology (advance online publication)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jez.2361
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jez.2361
Some varanid lizards show a prominent and highly distinctive lateral calcaneal process. It has been posited that this structure serves as a lateral "heel" to increase the moment arm for m. peroneus longus, allowing it to function as a powerful propulsive muscle. However, to confirm that m. peroneus longus serves this function requires electromyographic data showing activity during tarsal plantarflexion in the late part of the stance phase. Muscle activity patterns of m. peroneus longus, m. tibialis anterior, and mm. gastrocnemii were collected from two savannah monitors (Varanus exanthematicus) during quadrupedal walking. Across strides, m. peroneus longus shows an early onset just before hindlimb touchdown and an offset that is highly correlated with that of mm. gastrocnemii. These patterns are consistent across individuals. However, the fact that the first onset of m. peroneus longus appears to be around the end of swing phase, with activity continuing throughout the remainder of stance, suggests that this muscle likely serves other functional purposes during locomotion beside propulsion. This, paired with the fact that qualitative comparisons of m. peroneus longus activity across other lizard species reveal remarkably similar patterns, suggests the propulsive role of m. peroneus longus in V. exanthematicus was probably built upon existing muscle activity patterns present in ancestral squamates and then exaggerated through modifications to lateral calcaneal heel and the associated proximal expansion of the fifth metatarsal.
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AndrÃs F .Jaramillo, Ignacio De la Riva, Juan M. Guayasamin, Juan C. Chaparro, Giussepe Gagliardi-Urrutia, Roberto GutiÃrrez, Isabela Brcko, Carles Vilà & Santiago Castroviejo-Fisher (2020)
Vastly underestimated species richness of Amazonian salamanders (Plethodontidae: Bolitoglossa) and implications about plethodontid diversification.
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (advance online publication)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2020.106841
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1055790320301135
Highlights
We present the most compressive phylogenetic hypothesis of Bolitoglossa salamanders, including 73 % of their known diversity, using DNA sequences of mitochondrial and nuclear genes to study the species diversity, phylogenetics, and biogeography of Amazonian salamanders.
The species diversity of South American Bolitoglossa is vastly underestimated, our inferences indicate that there may be up to 44 species in Amazonia alone, an increase of 400 % in species diversity in the region.
The dispersal of Bolitoglossa to South America was 14.7â9.4 MYA.
The vast majority of Amazonian salamanders derived from a single dispersal event at least 6.8 MYA.
Abstract
We present data showing that the number of salamander species in Amazonia is vastly underestimated. We used DNA sequences of up to five genes (3 mitochondrial and 2 nuclear) of 366 specimens, 189 corresponding to 89 non-Amazonian nominal species and 177 Amazonian specimens, including types or topotypes, of eight of the nine recognized species in the region. By including representatives of all known species of Amazonian Bolitoglossa, except for one, and 73 % of the currently 132 recognized species of the genus, our dataset represents the broadest sample of Bolitoglossa species, specimens, and geographic localities studied to date. We performed phylogenetic analyses using parsimony with tree-alignment and maximum likelihood (ML) with similarity alignment, with indels as binary characters. Our optimal topologies were used to delimit lineages that we assigned to nominal species and candidate new species following criteria that maximize the consilience of the current species taxonomy, monophyly, gaps in branch lengths, genetic distances, and geographic distribution. We contrasted the results of our species-delimitation protocol with those of Automated Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) and multi-rate Poisson Tree Processes (mPTP). Finally, we inferred the historical biogeography of South American salamanders by dating the trees and using dispersal-vicariance analysis (DIVA). Our results revealed a clade including almost all Amazonian salamanders, with a topology incompatible with just the currently recognized nine species. Following our species-delimitation criteria, we identified 44 putative species in Amazonia. Both ABGD and mPTP inferred more species than currently recognized, but their numbers (23â49) and limits vary. Our biogeographic analysis suggested a stepping-stone colonization of the Amazonian lowlands from Central America through the Chocà and the Andes, with several late dispersals from Amazonia back into the Andes. These biogeographic events are temporally concordant with an early land bridge between Central and South America (~10â15 MYA) and major landscape changes in Amazonia during the late Miocene and Pliocene, such as the drainage of the Pebas system, the establishment of the Amazon River, and the major orogeny of the northern Andes.
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