scholarly journals Fossil quality and naming dinosaurs

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 729-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J Benton

The intense interest in dinosaurs through the past 30 years might have led to an increase in poor practice in naming new species. A review of the data shows that the reverse is the case. For 130 years, from the 1820s to the 1950s, most new species of dinosaurs were based on scrappy and incomplete material. After 1960, the majority of new species have been based on complete skulls or skeletons, and sometimes on materials from several individuals. This switch in the quality of type specimens corresponds to the recent explosive renaissance of interest in dinosaurs, during which the number of new species named per year has risen, from three or four in the 1950s, to thirty or more today. The pattern of specimen quality varies by continent, with the highest proportion of new species based on good material in North America, then Asia, then South America, then Africa and finally Europe. This ranking reflects a complex pattern of perhaps overstudy in Europe, immensely rich reserves of new dinosaur materials in North America and Asia, and a relative paucity in South America and Africa.

Zootaxa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 4363 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
JIAN-FENG LIU ◽  
XIAO-YING WEI ◽  
GUANG-YUN LI ◽  
ZHI-QIANG ZHANG

A list of type depositories of new mite species published in two journals (Systematic & Applied Acarology and Zootaxa) during the last five years (2012–2016) is presented in this paper. The 1370 new species are deposited unevenly among 134 collections. The top collection is the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia (145 species), which alone accounts for 10% of the total new species, and the top ten collections accounted for 48% of the total. The average number of new species per collection is 10 and over three quarters of the collections are below the average. Just over half (51%) of the collections are in Europe. However, overall there were still more new species deposited in collections in developing counties (741) than developed countries (629). The top country for type depositories of new mite species for each continent is: Russia (199 species) for Europe, Brazil (134 species) for South America, Iran (133 species) for Asia, Australia (87 species) for Oceania, USA (80 species) for North America and South Africa (36 species) for Africa. The top European collections hold type specimens mostly of foreign origin, whereas those of South America, Asia, Africa and Australasia hold type specimens mostly originating from their own countries. 


Zootaxa ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3620 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID EVANS WALTER ◽  
SARAH LATONAS

The oribatid mite genus Protoribates Berlese (Haplozetidae) is reviewed for North America and the genus diagnosis is revised to account for the North American species, Protoribates robustior (Jacot, 1937) is redescribed and newly reported from western North America and a new species from Alberta is described. Protoribates haughlandae sp. n. is bisexual, heterotridactylous, and lives primarily in the peat soils of fens and bogs. Protoribates robustior is all-female, monodactylous, and occurs primarily in dry forests or in dry, treeless sites dominated by grasses, sedges, and shrubs. Both species feed on fungal hyphae and spores, but P. haughlandae also is an opportunistic predator and/or necrophage of small arthropods and P. robustior gut contents often include material that resembles plant cell walls. Examination of type specimens confirms that Protoribates prionotus (Woolley, 1968) is a junior synonym of the widespread Protoribates lophotrichus (Berlese, 1904). A key to differentiate Lagenobates from Protoribates and to identify the 7 species of the latter that are known or reported from North America is provided.


Zootaxa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4403 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
PAULO VILELA CRUZ ◽  
FREDERICO FALCÃO SALLES ◽  
NEUSA HAMADA

In recent decades, major advances in the systematics of the Western Hemisphere genus Paracloeodes Day have been made in South America. Despite the taxonomic progress, uncertainties in identification remain due to the morphological similarities among some nymphs and due to the general lack of knowledge of the imago stages (only 4 of 20 are described from throughout the range of the genus). This study addresses these impediments in part through description of the male imagoes of six species (P. atroari Nieto & Salles, P. binodulus Lugo-Ortiz & McCafferty, P. ibicui Lugo-Ortiz & McCafferty, P. pacawara Nieto & Salles, P. peri Nieto & Salles, P. waimiri Nieto & Salles), description of two new species based on morphologically distinct nymphs (P. aristotelesi sp. n. and P. carolinae sp. n.), description of one new species based on morphologically distinct nymph and male imago (P. prismatobranchus sp. n.); redescription of three species based on type material (P. ibicui Lugo-Ortiz & McCafferty, P. leptobranchus Lugo-Ortiz & McCafferty and P. eurybranchus Lugo-Ortiz & McCafferty); proposal of one new synonym based on morphological analyses of specimens from Bolivia, Brazil and Uruguay, including type specimens (P. pacawara = P. morellii Emmerich & Nieto); and the presentation of a new key to identify nymphs from South America to the species level. 


Author(s):  
Tom Conley

Michel de Certeau, a French philosopher trained in history and ethnography, was a peripatetic teacher in Europe, South America and North America. His thought has inflected four areas of philosophy. He studied how mysticism informs late-medieval epistemology and social practice. With the advent of the Scientific Revolution, the affinities the mystic shares with nature and the cosmos become, like religion itself, repressed or concealed. An adjunct discipline, heterology, thus constitutes an anthropology of alterity, studying the ‘other’ and the destiny of religion since the sixteenth century. De Certeau opens the hidden agendas that make representations of the past a function of social pressures, so that sometime histories are rearticulated in mirrored or subversive forms. This subversion makes accessible a general philosophy of invention that works within and against the strategic policies of official institutions. De Certeau’s writings also belong to activism, the history of ideological structures, psychoanalysis, and post-1968 theories of writing (écriture) as defined by Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard.


Zootaxa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4806 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-144
Author(s):  
STEFFEN BAYER ◽  
HUBERT HÖFER ◽  
HEIKO METZNER

We propose a revision of the spider genus Corythalia C.L. Koch, 1850 (Salticidae: Euophryini) with a revised genus diagnosis based on examination of all species available to us. In this paper we redescribe all previously described species from South America with revised species diagnoses and describe 20 new species from South America (and the nearby islands). For C. latipes, the type species of the genus Corythalia, a neotype is designated. In total, 52 nominal species of the genus are herein treated, 46 species are recognized as valid. The females of C. waleckii Taczanowski, 1871, C. luctuosa Caporiacco, 1954 and C. latipes (C.L. Koch, 1846) are described for the first time. Corythalia sellata Simon, 1901, erroneously considered as nomen nudum in the present version of the World Spider Catalog, is here recognised as a valid species. Corythalia fulgipedia Crane, 1948 is also considered a valid species and is removed from the synonymy of C. tropica (Mello-Leitão, 1939). One name is considered a nomen dubium (Corythalia variegata Caporiacco, 1954), two are nomina nuda (C. major Simon, 1901; C. dimidiata Simon, 1901). Two species are transferred to other genera: C. argyrochrysos (Mello-Leitão, 1946) to Pachomius Peckham & Peckham, 1896 as Pachomius argyrochrysos (Mello-Leitão, 1946), comb. nov. and C. heliophanina (Taczanowski, 1871) to Neonella Gertsch, 1936, as Neonella heliophanina (Taczanowski, 1871), comb. nov. under incertae sedis. One species is synonymised: C. barbipes (Mello-Leitão, 1939) is a junior synonym of C. cincta (Badcock, 1932), syn. nov. The new Corythalia species are: C. conferta sp. nov. (♂♀, Brazil), C. concinna sp. nov. (♀, Brazil), C. drepane sp. nov. (♂♀, Brazil), C. drepanopsis sp. nov. (♀, Brazil), C. antepagmenti sp. nov. (♂♀, Brazil), C. ricti Bayer, sp. nov. (♂, Guyana), C. protensa sp. nov. (♂, Brazil), C. gasnieri sp. nov. (♂, Brazil), C. verhaaghi sp. nov. (♀, Brazil), C. scutellaris Bayer, sp. nov. (♂♀, Ecuador), C. dakryodes Bayer, sp. nov. (♀, Colombia), C. foelixi Bayer, sp. nov. (♂♀, French Guiana), C. longiducta sp. nov. (♀, Brazil), C. latior sp. nov. (♂, Bolivia), C. trochophora Bayer, sp. nov. (♂, Ecuador), C. lineata Bayer, sp. nov. (♂, Guyana), C. hamulifera Bayer, sp. nov. (♂, Ecuador), C. tribulosa sp. nov. (♂, Colombia), C. flagrans sp. nov. (♂, Brazil) and C. fragilis sp. nov. (♂♀, Brazil). Illustrations are provided for all of the new species and for all (primary) type specimens of the species re-described. Hypotheses of possible relationships among the different species of Corythalia are discussed. 


2002 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick A. Sundberg ◽  
Linda B. McCollum

Kochaspids are an informal group of ptychopariid trilobites that were both abundant and widespread in the early Middle Cambrian of North America. Based on the reassociation of pygidia and cranidia of some kochaspids, Kochiella Poulsen, 1927, is redefined and Hadrocephalites n. gen. is proposed. Hadrocephalites includes taxa previously assigned by Rasetti and Palmer to Schistometopus Resser, 1938a. Schistometopus is considered nomen dubium. Representatives of Kochiella and Hadrocephalites from the Pioche Shale and Carrara Formation of Nevada are described, including the new species Kochiella rasettii, K. brevaspis, Hadrocephalites lyndonensis, and H. rhytidodes. Other kochaspids previously assigned to Kochaspis Resser, 1935; Eiffelaspis Chang, 1963; Schistometopus; and Kochiella are discussed and some are reassigned. The type specimens of Kochiella augusta (Walcott, 1886); K. crito (Walcott, 1917b); K. chares (Walcott, 1917a); K. mansfieldi Resser, 1939; K. arenosa Resser, 1939; Hadrocephalites carina (Walcott, 1917b), and H. cecinna (Walcott, 1917b) are re-illustrated.


Zootaxa ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 2797 (1) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
AXEL KALLIES ◽  
MIN WANG ◽  
YUTAKA ARITA

Brachodidae are a small family of fewer than 140 described species that are distributed worldwide except in North America. They reach their greatest diversity in the tropical regions of Asia and South America; however, many species occur in the Palaearctic region and in Australia, but these are restricted to a small number of genera. More than 40 species are known from the Oriental region and many more await description (Kallies 1998, 2000, 2004).


Zootaxa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4808 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-250
Author(s):  
ALAN A. MYERS ◽  
JAMES K. LOWRY

The amphipod genus Orchestia is revised. It now includes 10 species of which three are new: O. forchuensis sp. nov. from north-eastern North America and Iceland., O. perezi sp. nov. from Chile and O. tabladoi sp. nov. from Argentina. Orchestia inaequalipes (K.H. Barnard 1951) is reinstated. The type species of the genus, O. gammarellus is redescribed based on material from Fountainstown, Ireland and a neotype is established to stabilize the species. The species was originally described from a garden in Leiden, far from the sea. Its true identity is unknown and no type material exists. Orchestia gammarellus (Pallas, 1776) is shown to be a sibling species group with members in both hemispheres of the temperate Atlantic as well along the Pacific coast of South America. A hypothesis for the establishment of the current distribution of Orchestia species is presented that extends back to the Cretaceous. 


Zootaxa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4809 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-131
Author(s):  
STEVEN FEND ◽  
PILAR RODRIGUEZ

Four new species of the lumbriculid genus Eremidrilus Fend & Rodriguez, 2003 are described from Idaho, Montana, and New Mexico. The new species all have a filiform proboscis, club-shaped atria in X, each with two functional vasa deferentia, and spermathecae paired in both XI and XII. Male pores of Eremidrilus artzaini n. sp., E. humboldti n. sp., and E. gilita n. sp. are all associated with distinctive porophores, but these structures are absent in E. montanensis n. sp. The new species are easily distinguished from California Eremidrilus species, all of which have spermathecae only in XI. New observations of type specimens of Eremidrilus allegheniensis (Cook, 1971), a species with two spermathecal segments, known only from eastern USA, confirm differences in atrial morphology, and also document unusual spermathecal porophores and ventral glands. 


1990 ◽  
Vol 105 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. C. Rodrigue ◽  
R. V. Tauxe ◽  
B. Rowe

SUMMARYOver the past 5 years Salmonella enteritidis infections in humans have increased on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. The WHO salmonella surveillance data for 1979–87 were reviewed and show that S. enteritidis appears to be increasing on at least the continents of North America, South America, and Europe, and may include Africa. S. enteritidis isolates increased in 24 (69%) of 35 countries between 1979 and 1987. In 1979, only 2 (10%) of 21 countries with reported data reported S. enteritidis as their most common salmonella serotype; in 1987, 9 (43%) of 21 countries reported S. enteritidis as their most common serotype; 8 (89 %) of 9 were European countries. Although the reason for the global increase is not yet clear, investigations in individual countries suggest it is related to consumption of eggs and poultry which harbour the organism.


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