The Horseshoe Canyon Formation in southern Alberta, Canada, preserves abundant plant fossils from the upper Campanian to upper Maastrichtian. However, studies describing the macroflora are taxonomically out of date, and limited work has been done to utilise the flora for palaeoclimatic reconstruction. Fifty-eight plant taxa are documented from the Morrin Bridge locality within the lower Maastrichtian Horsethief Member of the Horseshoe Canyon Formation. The assemblage is composed of gymnosperms, including diverse Cupressaceae, cycadophytes, and ginkgophytes, with rare ferns, and a relatively diverse suite of angiosperms, including dicot leaves of Platanaceae, Cercidiphyllaceae, Trochodendraceae, Betulaceae, and two monocots. Leaf physiognomy-based palaeoclimate reconstructions suggest a mean annual temperature of 12.4 ± 2.7 °C, warmest quarter temperature of 20.0 ± 2.5 °C, and coldest quarter temperature of 3.8 ± 3.2 °C, a mean annual precipitation of 1,282 (−405/+585) mm∙yr–1, relative humidity of 81.8 ± 9.3 %, and wettest month and driest month precipitation was 155 (−57/+90) mm and 71 (−39/+90) mm, respectively. This indicates a warm-temperate, humid environment, with modest temperature seasonality and minor precipitation seasonality. These results align with palaeosol data and sedimentological indicators of saturated floodplain conditions transitioning to more fluvial systems.
Dinopithecus ingens is a large, extinct ‘baboon-like’ cercopithecid defined by Broom in 1937 on the basis of a mandible and crushed partial skull from Schurweberg, Gauteng, South Africa (Plio-Pleistocene). The species remained poorly known for two decades until Freedman added a quantity of fossils from Swartkrans to the hypodigm. For the majority of subsequent researchers, the Swartkrans fossils were accepted as defining the species, despite morphometric differences in the dentitions of the samples from the two sites. Restudy of the type specimens reveals that none of the fossils from Swartkrans resembles the Schurweberg fossils, the Swartkrans assemblage resembling Papio and Gorgopithecus and differing morphometrically from Dinopithecus. Some of the dental features that distinguish Dinopithecus from Papio and Gorgopithecus recall specimens of fossil and extant geladas, as was noted by Arambourg in 1947 when he defined the species Dinopithecus brumpti from the Omo region, Ethiopia. The latter species was transferred to the subgenus Theropithecus (Omopithecus) by Delson in 1993, but it is herein raised to the rank of genus. In 1955, Arambourg recorded Dinopithecus from the Humpata Plateau in Angola, from cave breccias now known to have yielded abundant specimens of the extinct gelada lineage, Omopithecus baringensis. The Humpata discoveries prompted a close examination of the South African ‘baboon-like’ fossils with which they were previously compared and it is concluded that Dinopithecus does not occur in Angola, but its relative Omopithecus does. It became apparent during the study that the Humpata breccias are likely to date from the Middle Pliocene (ca. 4 ± 0.5 Ma) whereas the Schurwerberg deposits are likely to be aged between 1.4 and 0.4 Ma.
Augusta (1947) described Moraverpeton remesi and Branchiosaurus sp. from the Zbýšov Horizon of the Padochov Formation (earliest Asselian, early Permian) at Zbýšov in the Boskovice Basin (Moravia, Czech Republic), and assigned them to the family Branchiosauridae. This original amphibian material is very probably lost. New branchiosaurid material from the Zbýšov Horizon of Zbýšov and Moravský Krumlov are hereby described and is consistent with the described amphibian material from Augusta (1947). ‘Moraverpeton’ remesi Augusta, 1947 is clearly a branchiosaurid and is assigned to the genus Branchiosaurus Fritsch, 1876 as B. remesi. A neotype is established for B. remesi. This species is defined by a unique character combination of 11 features, e.g., the wide, near squarish supratemporal, the early dermal ornament with pits and ridges on median skull elements, and the maxilla with about 20 teeth. The aquatic fauna of the Zbýšov lake mainly consists in juvenile bivalves, with rarer occurrences of conchostracans, small actinopterygian fishes, Acanthodes, freshwater chondrichthyans and algae. This lake was at times amphibian dominated. The Branchiosaurus remesi population from the Zbýšov lake belongs to the stream type, suggesting high oxygen levels, possibly due to inflow from a river. The aquatic fauna of the Moravský Krumlov lake was fish-dominated by actinopterygians and xenacanthids, with only one single branchiosaurid specimen which very probably belongs to B. remesi.
The vertebrate fauna of the Late Triassic of Portugal has been poorly understood until recently, when new studies reported a rich environment shared by aquatic fauna, such as metoposaurids, mastodonsaurids, placodonts, phytosaurs and fishes. However, no fully non-aquatic vertebrates were known until now. A dorsal vertebra centrum (NOVA-FCT-DCT-5562) was recently found from the Triassic of the Silves Group (AB2 Unit) in Penina, Loulé Municipality, ascribed to the oldest dinosaur ever found in the Iberian Peninsula. Comparative anatomic and phylogenetic analyses were performed, using an updated matrix focused on early theropods, with 13 new characters, and tested with both equal and implied weights. The results place the material within Neotheropoda, one of the earliest specimens of the clade, as the sister group of the Early Jurassic Sarcosaurus from England. NOVA-FCT-DCT-5562 may represent an unknown theropod species, however it lacks autapomorphies and the remains are too fragmentary to attribute to any known species or to erect a new one.
One specimen of Otodus auriculatus and three specimens of O. megalodon are added to the catalogue of skeletal material from megatooth sharks. Criticisms of the Lamnoidea hypothesis and reconstruction of Cretalamna sp. by Sternes et al. (2024) are responded to. Included is discussion of the validity of rostra, regional endothermy, and bauplans as evidence for the Otodontidae + Lamnidae clade, as well as phylogenetic analyses incorporating these families. This is the third installment in a series of papers compiling the catalogue.
