This systematic survey of museum ratite (Pterocnemia, Rhea, Casuarius, Struthio, Dromias and Apteryx) skeletal collections was performed to reevaluate previous perspectives and assess effect of captivity on macroscopically detectable pathology.…
Recognition of avascular necrosis through propodial head subsidence in fossils indicates that plesiosaurs were susceptible to decompression syndrome and implies deep, prolonged or repetitive diving behavior for these animals. Contrary to the…
Recognition of muscle attachment sites and their modification has been an important tool in anthropologic and paleontologic research, but has been compromised by limited ability to recognise sites of tendinous attachments. We investigated bone-tendon…
A diverse near-shore marine fauna existed during the early Miocene in what is today an arid inland region about 90 km south of the Caribbean coast of northern Venezuela, a poorly known area geologically and paleontologically. The fossil locality…
Significant new material of the plesiadapiform Elphidotarsius russelli is described from Montana and Alberta. Previously the most poorly documented carpolestid, this species is now known from numerous isolated teeth and many jaw fragments. New…
The Paleogene vertebrate fossil record of Nigeria has until recently been limited to marine deposits in the Eocene-age Ameki Formation. New work in the Imo Formation of southeastern Nigeria has revealed a diverse ichthyofauna of Paleocene age. The…
Apes and Old World monkeys are prominent components of modern African and Asian ecosystems, yet the earliest phases of their evolutionary history have remained largely undocumented. The absence of crown catarrhine fossils older than ∼20 million years…
We report a new Miocene sirenian from District Kutch, State of Gujarat, India: Domingia sodhae gen. et sp. nov. The new species is a dugongine dugongid with flattened tusk-like upper incisors. Like some other Miocene dugongids, Domningia is large and…
The Eocene cetacean genera Andrewsiphius and Kutchicetus are systematically revised, their anatomy described, and their phylogenetic position analyzed. Each genus contains a single species, A. sloani and K. minimus, and both are known only from the…
Paleontology provides information about the history of morphological transformations, whereas developmental biology provides information about how such transformations happen at a mechanistic level. As such, developmental evidence enriches…
We discuss a model for the origin of cetacean swimming that is based on hydrodynamic and kinematic data of modern mammalian swimmers. The model suggests that modern otters (Mustelidae: Lutrinae) display several of the locomotor modes that early…
Dental morphology changes dramatically across the artiodactyl-cetacean transition, and it is generally assumed that this reflects the evolutionary change from herbivory and omnivory to carnivory. To test hypotheses regarding tooth function and diet,…
The cranial anatomy of Megalohyrax eoceanus Andrews, 1903, a pliohyracid (Hyracoidea, Mammalia) from Oligocene levels of the Jebel Qatrani Formation of the Fayum Depression in Egypt, is described. Megalohyrax is the largest of the Fayum hyracoids,…
We present a summary of the Eocene mammal faunas of Indo-Pakistan based on study of the known faunas and new collections. New taxa described here are the carpolestid Parvocristes oligocollis, the plesiadapid Jattadectes mamikheli (both new families…
Several types of pathological bony overgrowth are known from various dinosaur taxa but, except for stress fractures, are rarely reported from appendicular elements. Herein we describe pathological manual and pedal phalanges of a camarasaurid sauropod…
