Shells of marine gastropods from hydrothermal vent environments are coated with inorganic materials of unknown composition. Conversely, their fossil equivalents are known exclusively from outer moulds in pyrite (FeS2), with no shell material left.

Methane (CH4) is largely built from the light carbon isotope (12C). When emitted from the seabed, methane is oxidized by sediment-dwelling microorganisms, with one of the byproducts being methanogenic carbonate cements, themselves with large amounts of the 12C.

Ammonites, extinct cephalopods dominant in Mesozoic marine ecosystems, are often listed amongst victims of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction (66 Ma).

Rudists, extinct bivalves with massive shells, built vast reefs in the tropical Cretaceous seas.

In the prestigious series Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, a chapter was released that synthesizes data on the functional morphology and paleoecology of crinoids with unusual morphologies.

A taxonomic revision of the extinct genus Zittelia from Jurassic sediments made it possible to trace a gradual evolutionary change in shell morphology…

A POLONEZ BIS project, led by Dr. Milan Chroust in collaboration with Dr. Tomasz Szczygielski from the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences…

The paper presents a new Miocene species of a tortoise from Czechia – Manouria morla. Its specific name refers to Morla the Aged One, a turtle from “The Neverending Story” by Michael Ende.

Deep ocean waters are seen as refugia that can protect cold-water, non-symbiotic corals from warming and acidification.

Though coral reefs cover only a small part of Earth’s surface, they support over a quarter of marine species and nearly a billion people.

The over-thousand-page monograph on the largest mountain range in Palaeozoic Europe—the Variscan orogen—also includes a chapter on brachiopods.

Exceptionally well-preserved sub-fossil colonies of Cladocora sp. corals from the Hellenistic port of Acre (ca. 335–94 BCE) have made it possible to combine archaeological and modern data…

Imagine a microscope so powerful it can “see” molecules a billion times more precisely than traditional tools.

Spirotubus are puzzling microfossils from southern Poland, dating from the Devonian period, around 380 million years ago.

The article presents an overview of marine environments that existed in the area of present-day Poland around 380–360 million years ago, during the Devonian period, when this region was covered by an extensive shallow and warm sea.

The authors performed a taxonomic revision (in other words, a restudy) of silicified plant remains from the Miocene of Tokaj Mountains (Hungary).

An erratic chert pebble discovered in an exposure of the Pleistocene till in Norfolk, UK, contains graptolites and microfossils preserved three-dimensionally in silica.

New, very sensitive methods allowed analysing seasonal changes of strontium isotopes in woolly mammoth teeth…

Throughout their long evolutionary history, crinoids developed pseudoplanktonic lifestyles and attached themselves with long stalks to driftwood.

Protoceratopsids were small horned dinosaurs common in the Late Cretaceous rocks of the Gobi Desert.

Seas in the Jurassic were much different from now.

Lithistids, an informal grouping of demosponges, are sponges with skeletons built of articulated spicules.

Ichthyosaurs are one of the symbols of the Mesozoic and, alongside whales, the best-adapted to a marine lifestyle amniotes.

Plesionectes longicollum is a new plesiosauroid taxon from the lower Toarcian (Lower Jurassic) Posidonia Shale of Holzmaden, Germany…

An outcrop in southern Transylvania displays Upper Cretaceous transitional sediments from a marine to brackish environment with terrestrial elements.

For over a decade, intensive research have been conducted at Upper Jurassic (Tithonian) at the Owadów-Brzezinki palaeontological site.

Early Devonian crinoids from Morocco, inhabiting the northern Gondwana shelf, are described.

Living brachiopods are common in southern Australian waters but remain poorly known off NW Australia…

Foraminifera are a large group of unicellular microorganisms inhabiting waters and sediments of the world ocean…

The current geographic distribution of crocodiles is basically limited to the tropical zone…

Deep-sea research conducted using a submersible has, for the first time, provide…

Rhabdodonts are medium-sized ornithischian dinosaurs known solely from the Upper Cretaceous of Europe…

On the basis of Late Jurassic fossils from Sicily, Italy, it has been shown…

Shaping calcium carbonate: Biological and environmental controls on polymorphism

Already in the Late Triassic, turtles attained global distribution…

Seeleyosaurus guilelmiimperatoris is an early plesiosauroid from the Lower Jurassic Posidonia Shale of Germany.

The walls of graptolites are composed of collagen fibrils, forming unique half-rings (fuselli) and bands resembling bandages.

South Georgia – paradise reclaimed? Isolated islands are nature’s natural laboratories, where both the threats and positive effects of human

Geochemical studies of Recent echinoids from a variety of environments have shown that incorporation of trace elements into their skeleton…

How fast did the largest dinosaurs – the sauropods – walk? This may be calculated based on the length of their limb…

Description of the first remains of a crocodile and a sea turtle from the Middle Miocene locality of Kienberg in the Moravian part of Czechia.

The Pliensbachian (Early Jurassic, ∼192.9–184.2 Ma) plesiosaurs are poorly understood…

Fossilized marine calcifiers provide key data for reconstructing ancient seawater temperatures…

Wilhelm Friedberg (1873–1941) was a Polish naturalist focussing on Miocene geology and palaeontology…

Kyrtatrypa pauli, a new Givetian brachiopod species from Świętomarz and Laskowa in the Holy Cross Mountains, is described.

As late as in the mid-1960s, whales were still being intensively harvested and processed in South Georgia.

Hundreds of fossils with direct evidence of foraging were used to compare the trophic dynamics of five vertebrate communities…

Where the Dolomites stand today, about 235 million years ago there was a warm sea with many coral reefs.

Bones with large hollow spaces are one of the characteristic features of dinosaurs (including birds) and pterosaurs.Bones with large hollow spaces are one of the characteristic features of dinosaurs (including birds) and pterosaurs.

A sauropod femur found in 1963 in the Baynshire Formation (Cenomanian–Santonian) in Mongolia had been identified as belonging to a subadult representative of Titanosauriformes.

The study uncovers the world’s most diverse collection of fossilized ascidian spicules, found in Bogutovo Selo near Ugljevik, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and dating back to the Middle Miocene.

A new specimen of the early ichthyosaur Chaohusaurus zhangjiawanensis from the Early Triassic of Hubei Province, China, confirms heterodonty in this species.

A comprehensive study by an international team of researchers found that the evolutionary trajectories of Triassic–Jurassic ichthyosaurs and eosauropterygians…

Besanosaurus leptorhynchus is a large-bodied ichthyosaur from the Middle Triassic of Monte San Giorgio (Alps near the Italy–Switzerland border).

The earliest, Triassic (approx. 220–200 million years) turtles are characterized by a large diversity of bony connections…

Three new species of buttercups have been described from Western Pomerania.

The description of the complete skeleton of a dicynodont from Lisowice has enabled a new interpretation of incomplete data on Late Triassic dicynodonts.

…new data from Maxwell Bay, a wide-open bay in the South Shetland Islands.

Experiments on Recent sea urchins grown in seawater with a low Mg/Ca ratio have shown that they produce skeletons with lower magnesium content and nanohardness.

Turbinoliidae are a group of solitary scleractinian corals (suborder Refertina) with small conical coralla…

Biogenic minerals (biominerals) differ in structure and biogeochemical composition from their abiotic counterparts.

The first monographic study of several dozen crinoid taxa (including one new species) from the Jurassic and Cretaceous sediments of Africa and Asia (southern Tethys).

Recent stalked crinoids exclusively live at considerable depths, but in the geological past they were common in shallow-marine environments.

They are composed chiefly of chemosymbiotic lucinid and thyasirid bivalves.

An international team analysed functional morphology of the neck and paleoecology of the Late Cretaceous eutherian mammal Zalambdalestes lechei from Mongolia.

Mixosaurs were a group of ichthyosaurs from the Middle Triassic.

The paper documents another stage in elucidating the phylogenetic relationships among traditionally understood Caryophylliidae…

184 years ago, a small bone was discovered in the Triassic of Scotland…

At the site of Węże 2 near Działoszyn in Łódź Voivodeship numerous remains of mammals and other vertebrates dating from the Pliocene (over 2.5 million years ago) were found.

Triassic Tanystropheus was characterised by the most elongate vertebrae among the known animals

Turtles are characterized by an unusual anatomy of the locomotor apparatus linked with the development of their shell

Ajkaceratops kozmai from the Upper Cretaceous of Hungary was considered the most significant piece of evidence for the presence of Ceratopsia (horned dinosaurs) outside of Asia and North America.

The lower Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous) shallow-marine deposits exposed at Nahoryany, south of Lviv (western Ukraine), have been known as a rich source of fossils since 1843.

For over ten years, the Owadów–Brzezinki quarry have been yielding numerous well-preserved fossils.

Shells of small (micromorphic) brachiopods are not so attractive as other fossils preserved in the white chalk facies…

In the Jurassic period, besides the well-known plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, there existed a third group of widely distributed large predatory marine reptiles…

Reconstruction of the Ocean surface water temperature based on calibration of many geochemical indicators from skeletons.

Vertebrate bones are rare in the Lower Triassic deposits of the Holy Cross Mountains.

… The specimen represents an exceptionally large individual, larger than the known representatives of Proterochersis robusta from the same formation…

Trachelosaurus, described over 100 years ago, turned out to be not a chimera…

Franconiasaurus brevispinus is a new early plesiosaur established based on two three-dimensionally preserved skeletons from the Lower Jurassic of Germany.

Bagaraatan ostromi is an enigmatic carnivorous dinosaur described from the Upper Cretaceous Nemegt Formation in Mongolia.

Many organisms exhibit astonishing biomineralization abilities, forming polymorphic minerals from the same chemical substance.

One of the basic taphonomic questions is whether the borings in skeletal structures were produced in vivo or post mortem.

Diadectomorpha was a group of large-bodied herbivorous tetrapods that existed from the late Carboniferous to the late Permian.

A new, rich vertebrate assemblage was discovered in the Middle Triassic strata of Miedary in southern Poland.

The mode of locomotion of one of the earliest free-living stalked echinoderms – Ordovician Pleurocystites belonging to the subphylum Blastozoa – was reconstructed.

During the Miocene salinity crisis, changing environmental conditions, including a sharp reduction in water exchange between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, changed the geographic ranges of many organisms.

Turtles have a characteristic limb bone microstructure: the poorly vascularized tissue grows slowly throughout most of their life; in addition, there is no medullary cavity.

The paper deals with the anatomy of limbs and associated skeletal structures in the Triassic (c.a. 215 Myr) turtles belonging to the genus Proterochersis known from the territory of modern-day Germany and Poland.

Foraminifera (unicellular protists) from the Marquesas Keys, located 30 km west of Key West (Florida) allowed to reconstruct climatic conditions…

Lorrainosaurus from the Bajocian (Middle Jurassic) of France is the earliest large-bodied pliosaurid and the oldest known representative of a dynasty of marine reptile mega-predators…

The paper presents the results of histological studies of teeth of Late Jurassic fish from Owadów-Brzezinki.

Biomineralization of fish otoliths is regulated by macromolecules, such as proteins, whose presence is crucial for the functionality and properties of these mineralized structures.

Capacity of physiological modifications of the chemistry of the coral calcifying fluid that contains the molecules necessary for the formation of the skeleton…

The territory of Poland is mostly covered by sediments of glacial origin, which cover the Mesozoic rocks.

For the first time, the unusual phenomenon of graptolites growing on algae is observed.

Monospecific ostracod accumulations mainly within cephalopod (a nautiloid and two goniatites) phragmocones (siphuncle and camerae), are described from the Carboniferous of England.

Jurassic sediments of hydrocarbon seeps from La Elina Ranch (northern Patagonia) are the only source of information on this kind of environment in South America.

A Polish-Chinese research team described a new saurosphargid marine reptile from the Early Triassic of China (Hubei Province)…