This paper presents data on new finds of remains of Mammoth fauna mammals in the Middle Lena River basin (Lena Pillars Nature Park (Yakutia) and adjacent areas). Based on these data, a list of the main localities for large mammal species in this region was compiled. Eleven species of large mammals are identified, among which, the cave lion Panthera spelaea is reported for the first time for this region. A series of new radiocarbon dates allows us to conclude that there was a mass burial of Neopleistocene mammalian remains in this region during the Karginian interstadial (60 (55)–24 kyr ago, MIS-3). The radiocarbon dates obtained and species composition are consistent with the data that the Karginian interstadial was the most favorable for the distribution of the Mammoth fauna in the territory of Yakutia. The study results show that the ecological distribution of Ovis nivicola in the Late Pleistocene differs from its present-day habitat area.

New data on the taxonomic composition and ecological characteristics of Late Pleistocene vertebrates and invertebrates from the Lang Trang cave in northern Vietnam are presented. Based on the materials collected in progress of the work of the Joint Vietnam - Russia Tropical Science and Technology Research Center in 2020-2022, various representatives of the Stegodon-Ailuropoda Fauna of the second half of the Middle - early Late Pleistocene of Southeast Asia were identified, including primates Gigantopithecus blacki, Pongo sp., Trachypithecus sp., Presbytis sp., Macaca nemestrina, M. cf. fascicularis, M. cf. mulatta, and Macaca sp., carnivorans Panthera tigris, Neofelis nebulosa, and Arctonyx collaris rostratus, a lipotyphlan Chodsigoa hoffmanni, a bat Ia io, rodents Hystrix kiangsenensis, Leopoldamys neilli, and Rattus rattus, proboscideans Stegodon sp. and Elephas maximus, perissodactyls Tapirus indicus, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, Rhinoceros sondaicus, and Rh. unicornis, artiodactyls Sus scrofa, S. barbatus, Tragulus kanchil, Hydropotes inermis, Muntiacus muntjak, Axis porcinus, Rusa unicolor, Capricornis sumatraensis, Bubalus arnee, and Bos sp., a crocodile Crocodylus sp., a turtle Cuora sp. and an abundant gastropod association, presented by six terrestrial forms, two freshwater species and a coastal-marine species Ellobium aurismidae. Gigantopithecus blacki, Macaca cf. fascicularis, M. cf. mulatta, Neofelis nebulosa, Chodsigoa hoffmanni, Ia io, Leopoldamys neilli, Rattus rattus, Rhinoceros unicornis, Sus barbatus, Tragulus kanchil, Hydropotes inermis, Axis porcinus, crocodiles, turtles, and most of gastropod species were identified for the first time in the Lang Trang Fauna based on these studies. Of particular interest is the finding of the giant ape G. blacki, one of the latest in the fossil record. The habitats of the fauna are characterized as mosaic biotopes with a predominance of wet stations and the participation of mangrove swamps and coastal lowlands; these conditions could have existed in the area of the cave during a major marine transgression of the early Late Pleistocene.

The data on new finds of the remains of Mammoth fauna mammals in the basin of Middle Lena River (Yakutia, the area of natural park “Lenskiye Stolby (Lena Pillars)” and adjacent territories) is represented in the article. Based on these data, the species composition of the mammoth fauna list of large mammalian species from this region was specified. 11 species of large mammals were identified, among which, for the first time for this region, the presence of a cave lion was established. A series of new radiocarbon datings allowing to note that mass burials of the Pleistocene mammalian remains were mainly formed in this region during the Karginian interstadial (60 (55)–24 thousand years ago, MIS-3). The obtained radiocarbon dates and species composition are consistent with the data that the Karginian interstadial was the most favorable for the distribution of the mammoth fauna in the territory of Yakutia. The results of the studies show that in the Late Pleistocene, the ecological preferences of Ovis nivicola differed from the modern ones. For the first time, the distribution of Panthera spelaea is revealed in the region of the middle reaches of the Lena River.

A significant part of fossil findings, which are objects in palaeontological and palaeoanthropological research, is represented by teeth. Even if compared with skeletal remains, they are composed of highly mineralised tissues. This fact considerably increases their potential for being preserved withstanding destructive environmental factors. Nevertheless fossilisation process is accompanied by various changes in teeth including over the centuries with regard to their integrity or deformations. Thus among palaeontological findings there is a noticeable share of fragmented teeth. However we will focus in the current paper on a special group of teeth, which have preserved their most essential morphological features, being at the same time on the way to their fragmentation - cracked teeth.Recent morphological and especially morphometric study methods applied to dental findings have been developed largely in line with high-resolution imaging techniques, such as microfocus x-ray tomographic scanning. They provide diversity of detailed digital reconstructions of teeth and application of image processing. This allows improvements of existing methods in odontological studies as well as and development of new as well, including those using automated algorithms, e.g. automated digital odontometry. This technique is sensitive to reconstructed surface quality, uninterrupted requiring surfaces as cracks hinder running the algorithms. Thus we propose method for reconstructing cracked teeth, which allows to obtain better results in morphological studies of teeth. The method proposed is based on consistent stages of surface curvature analysis and minimizing average distance between points opposing cracks surfaces.

Speleological, geological and paleontological characteristics of the Lang Trang cave in northern Vietnam are presented. Primates Gigantopithecus blacki von Koenigswald, 1935, Pongo sp., Trachypithecus sp., Presbytis sp., Macaca nemestrina (Linnaeus, 1766), M. cf. fascicularis Raffles, 1821, M. cf. mulatta (Zimmermann, 1780), and Macaca sp., carnivorans Panthera tigris (Linnaeus, 1758), Neofelis nebulosa (Griffith, 1821), and Arctonyx collaris rostratus Matthew et Granger, 1923, lipotyphlan Chodsigoa hoffmanni Chen et al., 2017, rodents Hystrix kiangsenensis Wang, 1931, Leopoldamys neilli (Marshall, 1976), and Rattus rattus (Linnaeus, 1758), proboscidean Elephas sp., perissodactyls Tapirus indicus (Desmarest, 1819) and Dicerorhinus sumatrensis (Fischer, 1814), artiodactyls Sus scrofa Linnaeus, 1758, S. barbatus Müller, 1838, Muntiacus muntjak (Zimmermann, 1780), Axis porcinus (Zimmermann, 1780), Rusa unicolor (Kerr, 1792), and Capricornis sumatraensis (Bechstein, 1799), as well as crocodile Crocodylus sp. (first record in northern Vietnam) are determined among the Pleistocene fossils collected in the cave in 2021. M. cf. fascicularis, M. cf. mulatta, N. nebulosa, L. neilli and R. rattus have been identified in the Lang Trang fauna for the first time. The find of a giant ape, G. blacki, is of particular importance, since it is the only record in the Upper Pleistocene of Vietnam and one of the youngest findings in the world.

The dental remains of Gigantopithecus blacki von Koenigswald, 1935 (a complete right m2 with roots and distal fragment of left m2 crown) from the Upper Pleistocene deposits of the Lang Trang cave in northern Vietnam (Thanh Hoa Province) are described. It is the first record of Gigantopithecus in the Upper Pleistocene of Vietnam and, apparently, the second one in the Upper Pleistocene in general (considering material from Shuangtan cave in southern China). Probably, the extinction of G. blacki was confined to the Middle–Late Pleistocene transition, and the specimens from the Lang Trang cave belong to one of the latest relict populations of Gigantopithecus.

Findings of teeth play a significant role in palaeoanthropology. And excavations in Vietnamese LangTrank cave serve as a vivid example and evidence of this statement. Teeth constitute the majority of the paleontological material dated to Middle and Late Pleistocene periods. This is to some extent the result of dietary preferences of porcupines as these rodents include in their diets bones of animals however avoiding extremely hard coronal parts of teeth. Under such circumstances teeth serve a key to taxonomic differentiation of findings as genetic analysis is often hindered by a lack of preserved DNA at such dating of material. However morphological analysis is difficult in some cases either, as teeth can be worn out or broken. In that case enamel thickness measurements become an effective study instrument as this feature varies between species. In the current study two teeth with clear signs of expressed dental wear, presumably upper fourth premolars of wild boar required more detailed analysis. Thus they were reconstructed after micro-computed tomography scanning similarly to other upper teeth picked for comparison: orang-utan tooth from the same location and two teeth from the Upper Palaeolithic Sunghir (they have been scanned earlier). This study required new approaches to image processing and measurement methodology due to marked attrition of the samples. The workflow and results of enamel thickness assessments which facilitated taxonomical differentiation of the findings are presented in the article.

External morphological, X‑ray and tomographic study of the rodent frozen mummy from the Upper Pleistocene Yedoma deposits on the Tirekhtyakh River (tributary of the Semyulyakh River, Abyi District, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)) showed its belonging to Lemmus sp. The radiocarbon age of the find is 41 305-41 885 cal BP. This is the first Pleistocene discovery of a frozen mummy of the representative of the genus Lemmus. In terms of body and skull size, coat color, length of the lower incisor and the structure of the molars, the specimen studied is closed to the Recent Lemmus sibiricus (Kerr, 1792). Comparison of the mitochondrial COI gene sequence with the DNA sequences presented in the GenBank database demonstrates maximum similarity with the Recent Siberian brown lemming too.

We describe a vertebrate assemblage from the Pleistocene deposits of the Taurida karst cave discovered in 2018 in central Crimea (Zuya village, Belogorsk raion). The assemblage is correlated with Late Villafranchian faunas of the Eastern Mediterranean and has an approximate age of 1.8–1.5 Ma.

Data on the first reliable record of a skeleton of Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach 1799) in the Tver Region (Rameshkovsky district) are presented. M3 diagnostic morphological characters of this individual (number of plates 28, plate frequency 10, enamel thickness 1.2 mm) correspond to those of M. primigenius from the second half of the Late Pleistocene in the Russian Plain. The location of the mammoth is associated with floodplain alluvial and subaerial deposits of the first terrace of the Iviza River formed in the second half of the Late Pleistocene. The woolly mammoth and Dicrostonyx sp. obtained at the same locality were typical representatives of the mammoth fauna that inhabited the periglacial area of the last glaciation.

A new data on the geological structure, conditions of formation and faunal composition of the Early Cretaceous site of the terrestrial vertebrates by Shestakovo village (Kemerovo Region, Western Siberia) has been presented.The consolidated geological section has been constructed along the line Shestakovo-1 — Shestakovo-4 — Shestakovo-3 in which five lithologic members have been identified. A distribution of the vertebrates fauna taxons has been carried out along the selected lithologic members composing the Shestakovo series of the Ilek formation. A new data obtained during fieldwork in 2017 has made it possible to distinguish two main bony levels (lithologic members 3 and 5), which contain whole skeletons of reptiles. Lithofacies analysis has shown that the formation of the sites occurred under the conditions of the fluviolacustrine plain, where the channel, delta and floodplain facies were replaced by lake and lake-marshy facies, forming a series of sedimentation cycles. The latter are the evidence of the increase in the aridization of the climate upwards along the section. The given data calls into question previously expressed point of view about the coastal-marine or lagoon genesis of the Shestakovo series.

Paleontological studies are basically the studies of skeletal remains of organisms. However, the discovery of frozen mummies of Pleistocene mammals with preserved soft tissues and internal organs makes it possible to identify some features of animal biology that are inaccessible to the study of skeletons. Fossil frozen mummies become a valuable source of information on diet, seasons of death, migration and ecology, diseases, including parasitic diseases. The cases of detection of fossil parasites in the remains of Pleistocene mammals are always rare and random. Until recently there have been no dedicated effort to search for fossil parasites. Parasites of the Indigirka ground squirrel, the Egorov narrow-skull vole, the Pleistocene steppe bison, the Lena horse (Equus lenensis Russanov, 1968), and the woolly mammoth are known at the moment. This paper presents an overview of parasite finds in woolly mammoth Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach, 1799). For two centuries of studies of this species, a large volume of diverse data have been accumulated. The aim of this work was a making the review of cases of detection of parasites in mammoth. We discuss the specific cases of mammoth mummy studies, namely the Berezovka mammoth, the Shandrin mammoth, the Kirgilyakh mammoth, the Sopochnaya Karga Mammoth. As a result, the presence of following ectoparasites of the order Diptera was established: Cobboldia (Mamontia) russanovi Grunin, 1973, and Protophormia terraenovae Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830. The stomach botfly Cobboldia (Mamontia) russanovi is highly specific ectoparasite of woolly mammoth. Also helminths of classes Nematoda and Cestoda were found in the mammoth mummies. At the present, it is not possible to reliably determine the species-specific endoparasite of woolly mammoth.

The paper presents the first morphological description of the internal organs of a frozen corpse of the steppe bison Bison priscus (Bojanus, 1827) from the Holocene of northern Yakutia. Necropsy revealed that most of the internal organs, including the brain, heart with the main vessels, and reproductive system were well preserved. It demonstrated that the anatomy of this bison was close to that of the genera Bos and Bison. Trauma or pathological changes in the organs were not detected. The cause of death of the bison remains unknown.

The data on an isolated upper tooth (P4) of Deinotherium sp. from the Late Miocene beds of the Maikop 1 locality (Maikop, Republic of Adygea) are reported. This is the first record of Deinotherium from the Upper Miocene of Russia. The tooth crown of P4 is similar in size to D. proavum Eichwald, 1831 (= D. gigantissimum Stefanescu, 1892).

A well-preserved trunk (proboscis) of the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) found in 2010 in the area of the Oiyagosskii Yar, about 30 km west of the mouth of the Kondratievo River (Yakutia) is described (mammoth named Yuka). The distal part of trunk has a transverse expansion. In the expanded condition, it changes the trunk cross section from oval to ellipsoidal. The expansion is laterally framed by skin folds with sites of muscles making the trunk cross diameter twice as great. Trunk expansion has been recorded in three mammoths: Yuka, Kolyma mammoth, and Kirgilyakh mammoth calf. Structural details of the trunk expansion of the Kirgilyakh mammoth calf and Yuka are almost completely identical. This morphological feature distinguishes trunk of M. primigenius from Loxodonta africana and Elephas maximus ones, the cross section of which remains oval throughout the trunk extent. The adaptive value of this unique trunk structure of the woolly mammoth in connection with cold climate conditions is discussed.

This paper describes the treatment and results of the fixation procedure, extraction, dissection, and data collection of the preserved Late Pleistocene brain of the mummified specimen from permafrost. The partial carcass of the Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach 1799)) nicknamed "Yuka" was found in 2010 on the Dmitrii Laptev Sea coast (Northern Yakutia, Russia). It dates to 39,440 -38,850 cal. BP. This fossil presents the unique opportunity to study the preserved brain from permafrost, with well-defined major gross anatomy features of the cerebrum and cerebellum and internal structures revealed by Computed tomography (CT) and Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Anatomical description, CT data including volumetry, and results of the histological and electron microscopy study of the specimen are provided. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.

A partial corpse of a woolly mammoth calf ( M. primigenius ) found in 2004 in the Ol’chan mine (Oimiakon, Yakutia) is described. Based on DP 3 and body size, the calf is considered to be 14–16 months of individual age. The specimen provides new data on the skeletal morphology and biological features of the woolly mammoth. The formation of mammoth skeleton, ossification of epiphyses, apophyses, and morphology of soft tissues are described for the first time based on multisection spiral X-ray computer tomography and virtual autopsy. Selective deposition of fat in the area of the withers and dorsal regions of the cervical constriction is established with certainty. The calf apparently died because of a deep cranial trauma.

In the permanent dentition of the extinct genus Dolichopithecus, M1, I1, and I2 were the first to erupt, followed by M2, canine, P4, and P3. M3 was the last permanent tooth to erupt. At the stage of eruption of P4 and P3, M3 was incompletely mineralized. The difference from the extant Cercopithecoidea is the loss of all deciduous teeth after eruption of incisors and M1 and the similarity is observed in the succession of eruption of permanent teeth. In Dolichopithecus, the lower jaw body retained constant in thickness after eruption of M2. The lower jaw increased in length and depth, as the horizontal ramus grew with the formation and eruption of M3.