Science News

Institute of Paleobiology Polish Academy of Sciences

More information: www.paleo.pan.pl

Structure of the inner ear of early lagomorphs

The structure of the inner ear in mammals is highly informative with respect to locomotor agility and hearing sensitivity.

Fossils of the soft tissues of dinosaur tendons have been discovered

Tendons are elements connecting muscles and bones. In most vertebrates, they are flexible and elastic but in dinosaurs (including birds) some of them ossify.

Reconstruction of the retiolitines

Retiolitids are one of the group of graptolites with collagenous skeleton (rhabdosome) formed mostly by a network of lists.

Proteins from fossil otoliths of fish

Otoliths are calcium carbonate components of the inner ear in teleost fish.

Stratigraphy of sediments from the Owadów-Brzezinki site

The Owadów–Brzezinki palaeontological site is a new Jurassic taphonomic window.

Calculated how the dinosaur Plateosaurus breathed

Plateosaurus trossingensis is one of the largest herbivorous Late Triassic dinosaurs…

Biomineralization controlled by Otolin-1

Formation of the biomineral structures in the inner ear (otoliths and smaller, but having the same function otoconia) is tightly linked to the formation of organic matrix framework, among which the
otolin-1, a short collagen-like protein, is one of its major components.

Foraminifera from Antarctica

Foraminifera living in the fjords of South Georgia were studied…

Fossil biota of the Skały Formation

A special issue of the Annales Societatis Geologorum Poloniae…

Permian synapsid tracks with skin impressions!

The material is composed of well-preserved isolated tracks, manus-pes couples, and a slab with trackways composed of approximately 20 tracks …

Bone deformations in Triassic marine reptiles

The Vossenveld Formation cropping out near Winterswijk in the Netherlands is well known because of its rich Middle Triassic marine reptile fauna assemblage…

Late Cambrian coprolites and fossilized eggs from Poland

The Upper Cambrian Słowińska Formation yielded minute three-dimensionally preserved, phosphatic microfossils.

Mesozoic macroflora from Poland

Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae, the journal of the Polish Botanical Society, founded in 1922, published a special collection of papers entitled Polish Botany Centennial.

The oldest tumor in a fossil amphibian

Neoplasms are diseases that develop when body cells divide uncontrollably

“The eye of Sauron” and other microorganisms

Foraminifera and closely related gromiids dominate meiobenthos communities in polar regions…

New Triassic Ophthalmosaurus!

Omphalosauridae are one of the most enigmatic groups of Mesozoic marine reptiles.

New illustrated catalogue of sponge spicules

The description of the spicules’ shape and the skeleton organization represents the fundamental basis of sponge taxonomy and systematics.

First Cretaceous cephalopod statoliths

Up to now, Mesozoic statoliths were known only from the Jurassic…

Crinoid thecae of Haplocrinites from the Devonian of the Holy Cross Mountains

Morphometric analyses revealed that these thecae likely represent the same species…

A new genus and species of Jurassic feather star has been described

A new genus and species of feather star is named Ausichicrinites zelenskyyi…

The mystery of the siderite structures from the Turow Miocene is solved

Siderite masses from the Miocene of Turów mine have been the subject of much controversy…

Unique mitochondrial gene rearrangement in corals

Traditional Caryophylliidae has been known as the most speciose scleractinian coral family…

Complete mitochondrial genome of the pygmy rabbit

We sequenced the first complete mitochondrial genome of the pygmy rabbit…

Bryozoans on the leaf

Very rare finding: a tree leaf overgrown by marine bryozoans…

A new look at archaeocyaths

Are archaeocyaths,so far classified as sponges, algae?

The oldest described pliosaurus reexamined

Ischyrodon meriani is an obscure pliosaurid taxon from the Middle Jurassic of Switzerland.

Very rare Early Cretaceous sponges from Sardinia

The assemblage that consisted of skeletal elements (spicules) of “soft” demosponges…

Seymouriamorph tracks from the Boskovice Basin

Permian deposits of the Boskovice Basin in the Czech Republic have yielded hundreds of seymouriamorph individuals (a group of extinct tetrapods).

Twin-like corals

Cryptic species pose a great challenge for the traditional taxonomy and estimates of the actual species diversity…

Early Oligocene brachiopods from Mammendorf, Germany

The Lower Oligocene rocky-shore deposits at Mammendorf, central Germany yielded a surprisingly rich brachiopod fauna, containing 13 species belonging to 11 genera.

Brachiopods from the Rheic Ocean of Morocco

60 species of Middle Devonian brachiopods are described from Jbel Issoumour (Anti-Atlas, Morocco).

New crinoids from Holy Cross Mountains

Devonian crinoids from Holy Cross Mountains, including a new species – Codiacrinus sevastopuloi, were described.

Walking crinoid

A paper on ichnology of stalked crinoids are published…

Are foraminifera tests a good palaeothermometer?

Paleoclimate reconstructions commonly use oxygen isotope compositions from fossil foraminifera tests as proxies.

New species of sponges from Cenozoic Tethys

Sponges are important components of modern and fossil aquatic environments.

New studies on the Borogovia dinosaur

Borogovia gracilicrus is a theropod dinosaur from the uppermost Cretaceous of Mongolia. It was discovered during the 1971 Polish-Mongolian paleontological expedition to the Nemegt Basin.

Nomenclatural revision of Ornithischia

Ornithischians represent one of the three major radiations of dinosaurs. Throughout their evolutionary history, exceeding 134 million years, ornithischians evolved considerable diversity…

Triassic ichthyosaurs from Siberia

The Late Triassic (ca. 225 million years ago) was an important period in the evolutionary history of ichthyosaurs, which saw the rise of their advanced ‘fish-shaped’ representatives.

Ammonoid habitat depth preferences

Stable isotopes and predation marks shed new light on ammonoid habitat depth preferences

The giant spicule of the sponge

The results of new research on the giant siliceous basal spicule of the deep water sponge Monorhaphis chuni…

Tabulate corals from the Holy Cross Mountains (Poland)

The authors described coralliths (unattached coral colonies passively rotated by water movement)…

Using modern technology allows extracting more information from plant fossils

The object of the paper is to show how using modern technology (neutron tomography, fluorescence) allows extracting more information…

The concept of ‘heteromorph ammonoids’

The ammonoids are extinct cephalopods with predominantly planispirally-coiled shells. The term ‘heteromorph ammonoids’ is deeply rooted in literature to ecompass ‘aberrant’ ammonoids…

Biomineralization of stony coral Stylophora

Polyps in different locations on individual stony coral colonies experience variation in numerous environmental conditions including flow and light…

New species of late Cretaceous gastropods from Cyprus

Hydrothermal vent communities are associations of animals living in deep sea around sulphide chimneys. Their feeding strategies are based on chemosynthesis by microbial primary producers.

Age-related diseases of dinosaurs

Senile dinosaurs are very rare in fossil record. The study is focused on the biggest specimen of Gobihadros mongoliensis.

Late Carnian symbiotic corals

The paper provides evidence of the coral-algal symbiosis among the Triassic (Carnian, ca. 230 Ma) corals living on the patch reefs of the Western Tethys (deposits currently exposed in the Dolomite Alps, Italy).

A new aetosaur from Poland

The historical locality of Kocury yielded the first definitive dinosaur remains from Poland, Velocipes guerichi von Huene, 1932, but quickly fell into obscurity.

A new retiolitid from Poland

Papiliograptus retimarginatus n. sp. is reported from the praedeubeli/deubeli Biozone…

Palaeolagus, an early lagomorph

Palaeolagus, an early lagomorph from the Eocene–Oligocene of North America, is important for our understanding of the anatomy of the hypothetical last common ancestor of extant lagomorphs…

A modern scleractinian coral with a two-component calcite–aragonite skeleton

Calcitic rugosan vs. aragonitic scleractinian corals? What if modern scleractinian coral forms a bimineralic skeleton?