More Like this

1. Evolutionary origins of the prolonged extant squamate radiation

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34217-5  

   Brownstein, Chase D; Meyer, Dalton L; Fabbri, Matteo; Bhullar, Bhart-Anjan S; Gauthier, Jacques A (December 2022, Nature Communications)

   Abstract Squamata is the most diverse clade of terrestrial vertebrates. Although the origin of pan-squamates lies in the Triassic, the oldest undisputed members of extant clades known from nearly complete, uncrushed material come from the Cretaceous. Here, we describe three-dimensionally preserved partial skulls of two new crown lizards from the Late Jurassic of North America. Both species are placed at the base of the skink, girdled, and night lizard clade Pan-Scincoidea, which consistently occupies a position deep inside the squamate crown in both morphological and molecular phylogenies. The new lizards show that several features uniting pan-scincoids with another major lizard clade, the pan-lacertoids, in trees using morphology were convergently acquired as predicted by molecular analyses. Further, the palate of one new lizard bears a handful of ancestral saurian characteristics lost in nearly all extant squamates, revealing an underappreciated degree of complex morphological evolution in the early squamate crown. We find strong evidence for close relationships between the two new species and Cretaceous taxa from Eurasia. Together, these results suggest that early crown squamates had a wide geographic distribution and experienced complicated morphological evolution even while the Rhynchocephalia, now solely represented by the tuatara, was the dominant clade of lepidosaurs. 

   more » « less
2. Extant Terebratellidina phylogeny and homology of the long loop

   López Carranza, N.; Carlson, S. J. (January 2018, Permophiles)
3. Beetle bioluminescence outshines extant aerial predators

   https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0821  

   Powell, Gareth S.; Saxton, Natalie A.; Pacheco, Yelena M.; Stanger-Hall, Kathrin F.; Martin, Gavin J.; Kusy, Dominik; Felipe_Lima_Da_Silveira, Luiz; Bocak, Ladislav; Branham, Marc A.; Bybee, Seth M. (July 2022, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)

   We understand very little about the timing and origins of bioluminescence, particularly as a predator avoidance strategy. Understanding the timing of its origins, however, can help elucidate the evolution of this ecologically important signal. Using fireflies, a prevalent bioluminescent group where bioluminescence primarily functions as aposematic and sexual signals, we explore the origins of this signal in the context of their potential predators. Divergence time estimations were performed using genomic-scale datasets providing a robust estimate for the origin of firefly bioluminescence as both a terrestrial and as an aerial signal. Our results recover the origin of terrestrial beetle bioluminescence at 141.17 (122.63–161.17) Ma and firefly aerial bioluminescence at 133.18 (117.86–152.47) Ma using a large dataset focused on Lampyridae; and terrestrial bioluminescence at 148.03 (130.12–166.80) Ma, with the age of aerial bioluminescence at 104.97 (99.00–120.90) Ma using a complementary Elateroidea dataset. These ages pre-date the origins of all known extant aerial predators (i.e. bats and birds) and support much older terrestrial predators (assassin bugs, frogs, ground beetles, lizards, snakes, hunting spiders and harvestmen) as the drivers of terrestrial bioluminescence in beetles. These ages also support the hypothesis that sexual signalling was probably the original function of this signal in aerial fireflies. 

   more » « less
4. Mars Extant Life: What's Next? Conference Report

   https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2020.2237  

   Carrier, B.L.; Beaty, D.W.; Meyer, M.A.; Blank, J.G.; Chou, L.; DasSarma, S.; Des Marais, D.J.; Eigenbrode, J.L.; Grefenstette, N.; Lanza, N.L.; et al (June 2020, Astrobiology)
5. Eocene Fossil Legume Leaves Referable to the Extant Genus Arcoa (Caesalpinioideae, Leguminosae)

   https://doi.org/10.1086/701468  

   Herendeen, Patrick S.; Herrera, Fabiany (March 2019, International Journal of Plant Sciences)