A large pterosaur limb bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian) of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, USA

Pterosaurs were widespread during the Late Cretaceous, but their fossils are comparatively rare in terrestrial depositional environments. A large pterosaur bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian, ~76–74 Ma) of southern Utah, USA, is tentatively identified as an ulna, although its phylogenetic placement cannot be precisely constrained beyond Pterosauria. The element measures over 36 cm in preserved maximum length, indicating a comparatively large individual with an estimated wingspan between 4.3 and 5.9 m, the largest pterosaur yet reported from the Kaiparowits Formation. This size estimate places the individual at approximately the same wingspan as the holotype for Cryodrakon boreas from the penecontemporaneous Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta. Thus, relatively large pterosaurs occurred in terrestrial ecosystems in both the northern and southern parts of Laramidia (western North America) during the late Campanian.

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NEW NEARCTIC CRANE-FLIES (TIPULIDAE, DIPTERA), PART XIX

The Canadian Entomologist ◽

10.4039/ent75139-8 ◽

1943 ◽

Vol 75 (8) ◽

pp. 139-145 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Charles P. Alexander

Keyword(s):

British Columbia ◽

North America ◽

Type Material ◽

Western North America ◽

Crane Flies ◽

The Individual

The crane-flies considered herewith are all from Western North America, from British Columbia to California. The names of the collectors and the location of the type material are indicated at the end of the individual specific accounts; where not stated to the contrary, such types are preserved in my own collection of these flies.

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Modernisation of the Hymenoptera: ants, bees, wasps, and sawflies of the early Eocene Okanagan Highlands of western North America

The Canadian Entomologist ◽

10.4039/tce.2017.59 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 150 (2) ◽

pp. 205-257 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

S. B. Archibald ◽

Alexandr P. Rasnitsyn ◽

Denis J. Brothers ◽

Rolf W. Mathewes

Keyword(s):

North America ◽

Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽

Sensu Stricto ◽

Late Eocene ◽

Trophic Guilds ◽

Early Eocene ◽

Western North America ◽

Family Level ◽

Okanagan Highlands ◽

Taphonomic Processes

AbstractMost major modern families of Hymenoptera were established in the Mesozoic, but the diversifications within ecologically key trophic guilds and lineages that significantly influence the character of modern terrestrial ecosystems – bees (Apiformes), ants (Formicidae), social Vespidae, parasitoids (Ichneumonidae), and phytophagous Tenthredinoidea – were previously known to occur mostly in the middle to late Eocene. We find these changes earlier, seen here in the early Eocene Okanagan Highlands fossil deposits of western North America. Some of these may have occurred even earlier, but have been obscured by taphonomic processes. We provide an overview of the Okanagan Highlands Hymenoptera to family level and in some cases below that, with a minimum of 25 named families and at least 30 when those tentatively assigned or distinct at family level, but not named are included. Some are poorly known as fossils (Trigonalidae, Siricidae, Peradeniidae, Monomachidae), and some represent the oldest confirmed occurrences (Trigonalidae, Pompilidae, Sphecidaesensu stricto, Peradeniidae, Monomachidae, and possibly Halictidae). Some taxa previously thought to be relictual or extinct by the end of the Cretaceous (Angarosphecidae, Archaeoscoliinae, some Diapriidae) are present and sometimes abundant in the early Eocene. Living relatives of some taxa are now present in different climate regimes or on different continents.

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Phylogenetic placement and lectotypification of Pseudotryblidium neesii (Helotiales, Leotiomycetes)

Fungal Systematics and Evolution ◽

10.3114/fuse.2020.05.09 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 139-150

Author(s):

A. Suija ◽

M. Haldeman ◽

E. Zimmermann ◽

U. Braun ◽

P. Diederich

Keyword(s):

Phylogenetic Analysis ◽

North America ◽

Geographical Distribution ◽

Sequence Data ◽

Abies Alba ◽

New Combination ◽

Its Sequence ◽

Western North America ◽

Phylogenetic Placement ◽

North Western

A phylogenetic analysis of combined rDNA LSU and ITS sequence data was carried out to determine the phylogenetic placement of specimens identified as Pseudotryblidium neesii. The species forms a distinct clade within Dermateaceae (Helotiales, Leotiomycetes) with Rhizodermea veluwiensis and two Dermea species. The geographical distribution of this species, previously known only from Europe on Abies alba, is extended to north-western North America where it grows exclusively on A. grandis. The name P. neesii is lectotypified in order to disentangle the complicated nomenclature of the species. A new, detailed description of P. neesii with illustrations is provided after comparison of sequenced specimens with the type material. Furthermore, the new combination Pseudographis rufonigra (basionym Peziza rufonigra) is made for a fungus previously known as Pseudographis pinicola.

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First reported actinopterygian from the Navajo Sandstone (Lower Jurassic, Glen Canyon Group) of southern Utah, USA

Journal of Paleontology ◽

10.1017/jpa.2017.14 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 91 (3) ◽

pp. 548-553

Author(s):

Joseph A. Frederickson ◽

Brian M. Davis

Keyword(s):

North America ◽

Middle Jurassic ◽

Fossil Record ◽

Lower Jurassic ◽

Western North America ◽

Dune System ◽

Navajo Sandstone ◽

National Monument ◽

First Occurrence ◽

Glen Canyon

AbstractWe report the first occurrence of an actinopterygian fish from the Lower Jurassic Navajo Sandstone, discovered in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, U.S.A. The site contains multiple individuals, preserved within an interdune deposit, possessing the elongate modified dorsal scales usually characterizing semionotiform fishes. The presence of moderately sized fish provides further evidence that interdune oases were occasionally persistent environmental habitats within the greater Navajo dune system, and that the paleobiota is still woefully undersampled. Additionally, this site could help fill a gap in the actinopterygian fossil record between the patchy Lower Jurassic and better-known Middle Jurassic documentation of western North America.

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An extreme climate gradient-induced ecological regionalization in the Upper Cretaceous Western Interior Basin of North America

Geological Society of America Bulletin ◽

10.1130/b35904.1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Landon Burgener ◽

Ethan Hyland ◽

Emily Griffith ◽

Helena Mitášová ◽

Lindsay E. Zanno ◽

...

Keyword(s):

North America ◽

Transition Zone ◽

Upper Cretaceous ◽

Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽

Mean Annual Temperature ◽

Western North America ◽

Biological Communities ◽

Biogeographical Distribution ◽

Ecological Regionalization ◽

Western Interior Basin

The Upper Cretaceous Western Interior Basin of North America provides a unique laboratory for constraining the effects of spatial climate patterns on the macroevolution and spatiotemporal distribution of biological communities across geologic timescales. Previous studies suggested that Western Interior Basin terrestrial ecosystems were divided into distinct southern and northern communities, and that this provincialism was maintained by a putative climate barrier at ∼50°N paleolatitude; however, this climate barrier hypothesis has yet to be tested. We present mean annual temperature (MAT) spatial interpolations for the Western Interior Basin that confirm the presence of a distinct terrestrial climate barrier in the form of a MAT transition zone between 48°N and 58°N paleolatitude during the final 15 m.y. of the Cretaceous. This transition zone was characterized by steep latitudinal temperature gradients and divided the Western Interior Basin into warm southern and cool northern biomes. Similarity analyses of new compilations of fossil pollen and leaf records from the Western Interior Basin suggest that the biogeographical distribution of primary producers in the Western Interior Basin was heavily influenced by the presence of this temperature transition zone, which in turn may have impacted the distribution of the entire trophic system across western North America.

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