Sphenoecium marjumensis  &  Tarnagraptus cupidus Lerosey-Aubril, Maletz, Coleman, Mouro, Gaines, Skabelund & Ortega-Hernández, 2024 DOI: doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1... Read more Sphenoecium marjumensis  &  Tarnagraptus cupidus Lerosey-Aubril, Maletz, Coleman, Mouro, Gaines, Skabelund & Ortega-Hernández, 2024 DOI: doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1555  ortega-hernandezlab.oeb.harvard.edu x.com/PlLife2AbstractPterobranchs are rare in Cambrian strata of North America despite discoveries of more than 30 exceptionally preserved fossil biotas. Miaolingian pterobranchs from this continent typically form low-diversity and low-abundance assemblages. Here we describe an abundant pterobranch material from the Drumian Marjum Formation recently collected at the Gray Marjum Quarry in the House Range of Utah, USA. The faunule is composed of two new species: Sphenoecium marjumensis, an encrusting representative forming compact bushy colonies of more than 80 tubes with poorly developed rhizomes, and Tarnagraptus cupidus, an erect growing taxon characterized by intertwining stems and a monopodial colonial growth. Known in extant rhabdopleurids, this mode of colonial growth had hitherto never been observed in fossil pterobranchs. Its documentation in a c. 500-myr-old taxon attests to its deep origin in the evolutionary history of the group. Although the new species almost exclusively occur in the Marjum strata, this pterobranch faunule is broadly similar to those recovered from other Miaolingian Burgess Shale-type deposits of North America in terms of genus-level composition, species richness, and ecological structure. This may indicate that pterobranchs were poorly diverse components of animal communities at that time, or that they mostly thrived in more proximal shelf environments where conditions conducive to their preservation rarely developed. The common co-occurrence of taxa with fundamentally different ecomorphotypes in the Miaolingian Series of North America strongly suggests an earlier phase of morphological diversification of benthic pterobranchs during the early Cambrian, which remains insufficiently documented by fossils.Keywords: Pterobranchia, Graptolithina, Marjum Formation, Konservat-Lagerstätten, Miaolingian, Drumian Rudy Lerosey-Aubril, Jörg Maletz, Robert Coleman, Lucas Del Mouro, Robert R. Gaines, Jacob Skabelund and Javier Ortega-Hernández. 2024. Benthic pterobranchs from the Cambrian (Drumian) Marjum Konservat-Lagerstätte of Utah. Papers in Palaeontology. DOI: doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1555  ortega-hernandezlab.oeb.harvard.edu/news/back-back-publications-cambrian-ordovician-lagerstätte  x.com/InvertebratePal/status/1806687327194087599  x.com/PlLife2/status/1790758316098117943  x.com/ThePalAss/status/1791479826722766987 Show less

The 55-year-old vice-president stepped into the nation's top job after chairing an emergency meeting of the Council of Ministers in Caracas, with officials confirming her first cabinet meeting as a... Read more The 55-year-old vice-president stepped into the nation's top job after chairing an emergency meeting of the Council of Ministers in Caracas, with officials confirming her first cabinet meeting as acting president Show less

Inside high-energy proton collisions, quarks and gluons briefly form a dense, boiling state before cooling into ordinary particles. Researchers expected this transition to change how disordered the... Read more Inside high-energy proton collisions, quarks and gluons briefly form a dense, boiling state before cooling into ordinary particles. Researchers expected this transition to change how disordered the system is, but LHC data tell a different story. A newly improved collision model matches experiments better than older ones and reveals that the “entropy” remains unchanged throughout the process. This unexpected result turns out to be a direct fingerprint of quantum mechanics at work. Show less

 Zygogrylloblatta longipalpaPeng, Engel, Boderau, Legendre, Liu, Nyunt, Wang & Nel, 2025DOI: doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.0557Artwork by Dinghua Yang. Abstract Extant ice-crawl... Read more  Zygogrylloblatta longipalpaPeng, Engel, Boderau, Legendre, Liu, Nyunt, Wang & Nel, 2025DOI: doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.0557Artwork by Dinghua Yang. Abstract Extant ice-crawlers (Notoptera: Grylloblattidae) are wingless, ground-dwelling, relict, polyneopteran insects that live in Holarctic cold environments. Their closest living relatives are the similarly apterous bush-crawlers (Notoptera: Mantophasmatodea) from southern Africa, forming together a disjunct bipolar distribution. Meanwhile, numerous winged fossil insects have been assigned to Grylloblattodea, though the lack of defining synapomorphies has complicated efforts to clarify the evolutionary relationships between these fossils and modern wingless ice-crawlers. Here, we report a well preserved winged ice-crawler, Zygogrylloblatta longipalpa gen. et sp. nov., from the Albian/Cenomanian of northern Myanmar (ca 99 Ma). Zygogrylloblatta has the typical forewing venation of Mesozoic ‘stem-Grylloblattodea’, but also exhibits a unique unambiguous synapomorphy of extant Grylloblattidae in male genitalia (coxae IX with apical styli), making it the only fossil accurately related to crown-group Grylloblattidae. In contrast to ground-dwelling habits of extant ice-crawlers, Zygogrylloblatta has well developed wings, arolia and true foot pads, supporting a specialized arboreal lifestyle during the mid-Cretaceous. We demonstrate that Grylloblattidae diverged from some winged, arboreal ancestors prior to the mid-Cretaceous, bridging the gap between ancient stem-group and extant Grylloblattidae. Our results reveal previously unknown ecological and morphological diversity in early ice-crawlers and highlight the significance of transitional fossils in tracing the origin of this enigmatic insect lineage.Keywords: Insecta, Grylloblattodea, morphology, phylogeny, synapomorphy, male genitalia  Zygogrylloblatta longipalpa sp. nov., male, holotype, NIGP206615. Photographs of (a) dorsal view; (b) dorsal view of head; (c) ventral view of head; (d) pulvilli on metatarsus, arrow indicates a puvillus; (e) protibia and protarsus; (f) mesotarsus; (g) posterior abdomen and cerci. (h) Line drawing of forewing. (i) Line drawing of hindleg. Abbreviations: C, costal vein; ScP, posterior subcosta; RA, anterior branch of radius; RP, posterior radius; MA, anterior branches of media; MP, posterior branches of media; CuA, cubitus anterior; CuA1, first branch of CuA; CuA2, second branch of CuA; CuP, cubitus posterior; PCu, post cubitus; AA, anal anterior. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, tarsomeres I–iV; ar, arolium; car, circumantennal ridge; c, cerci; ce, compound eye; cv, cervix; ga, galea; la, lacinia; lp, labial palpus; mp, maxillary palpus; p, pulvillus; pe, pedicellus; gl, glossa; sc, scape; sm, submentum. Scale bars, 1 mm. Palaeoecological reconstruction of Zygogrylloblatta longipalpa sp. nov. in a Mesozoic forest. Artwork by Dinghua Yang.Systematic palaeontologyOrder NotopteraSuborder GrylloblattodeaFamily Zygogrylloblattidae fam. nov. Genus Zygogrylloblatta gen. nov. Etymology. The new generic name is a combination of the Ancient Greek noun ζῠγόν/zugón, meaning, ‘yoke’ (in the sense of joining beasts of burden), and the generic name Grylloblatta Walker. The gender of the name is feminine.Diagnosis. Maxillary palpus extremely long (a putative autapomorphy); tarsal formula 4−5−5; in forewings, no ‘false costa’; RP with three short, apical branches; M and CuA separated; no ‘arculus’; a broad area between CuA and CuP; basal stem of CuA nearly straight; CuA1 with only two branches; CuA2 forming a strong basal curve; ScP short, only reaching two-third of wing length; only rather few simple crossveins between main veins. Zygogrylloblatta longipalpa gen. et sp. nov. Type locality and horizon. Hukawng Valley, Kachin State, northern Myanmar; upper Albian–lower Cenomanian (ca 98.79 ± 0.62 Ma).Etymology. The specific epithet refers to the extremely elongate maxillary palpus.Ancheng Peng, Michael S. Engel, Mathieu Boderau, Frédéric Legendre, Yu Liu, Thet Tin Nyunt, Bo Wang and André Nel. 2025. Descending from Trees: A Cretaceous winged Ice-crawler illuminates the Ecological shift and Origin of Grylloblattidae. Proc Biol Sci. 292 (2049): 20250557. DOI: doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.0557 [18 June 2025] Show less

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