A new genus and species of tapiromorph, Karagalax mamikhelensis, is described from the Eocene Mami Khel Formation of northwest Pakistan. The new species is known from adult and juvenile dentitions, juvenile skulls, and partial postcrania. It is the most primitive perissodactyl yet reported from Indo-Pakistan. The morphology of its lophodont molars indicates that Karagalax is a tapiromorph, and it is here included in the primitive family Isectolophidae. Karagalax is more derived (more lophodont) than North American isectolophids Systemodon and Cardiolophus or the Asian early Eocene Orientolophus and Homogalax wutuensis, and more primitive (less lophodont) than North American Homogalax and Isectolophus. It is distinct from the poorly known and enigmatic Indian isectolophid Sastrilophus. Karagalax lacks any derived features of the Deperetellidae, Helaletidae or Lophialetidae, including Kalakotia, a primitive lophialetid from the middle Eocene of northwest India. The partial postcrania of Karagalax, which include fragmentary humeri, femora, ulnae, tibiae and metapodials, show a combination of primitive and derived features and suggest that it was more cursorial than other basal tapiromorphs for which postcrania are known.

A provisional analysis of the phylogenetic positions of Karagalax and Kalakotia supports the hypothesis that primitive perissodactyls dispersed to Indo-Pakistan, most probably by way of continental Asia. The evolutionary position of Karagalax is consistent with an early Eocene age for H-GSP Locality 300, as argued previously on the basis of other mammals.

Due to similarities in size as well as in morphology between the type materials of both species, synonymy of Atlantoxerus idubedensis Cuenca Bescós, 1988, with the species A. blacki (de Bruijn, 1967) is proposed. New and previously described material of the genus Atlanioxerus from the Aragonian type area in Spain are assigned to a single species, A. blacki, on the basis of metrical and morphological analyses. An emended diagnosis for A. blacki is proposed in order to include the observed variability. This species is characterized by its high morphological variability, tendency towards reduction in some relative dental proportions, and tending to increase in size rapidly.

The reliability of any survey of biodiversity through geologic time depends on the rigor and consistency by which taxa are recognized and samples are identified. The main goal of the Neogene Marine Biota of Tropical America (‘NMITA’) project is to create an online biotic database (http://nmita.geology.uiowa.edu) containing images and synoptic taxonomic information that are essential to collecting and disseminating high-quality taxic data. The database consists of an inventory of taxa collected as part of several large multi-taxa fossil sampling programs designed to assess marine biodiversity in tropical America over the past 25 m.y. In the first phase of the project, data for ~1,300 taxa and ~3,800 images are currently being entered into a relational database management system on an IBM RS6000 at the University of Iowa. Eleven taxonomic groups are represented: bivalves, gastropods (muricids, marginellids, strombinids), bryozoans (cheilostome, cyclostome), corals (azooxanthellate, zooxanthellate), benthic foraminifers, ostracodes, fish. The lowest taxonomic rank is species (genera/subgenera in mollusks) and the highest is family. Data that are collected and displayed on taxon pages include: (1) taxonomic authorship, synonyms, type specimens, and diagnostic morphologic characters; (2) images of representative specimens and associated museum catalog and measurement data; (3) distributional information including geologic ages, stratigraphic units, and spatial locations; and (4) higher level classification (genera and families) and bibliographic information. Illustrated glossaries of morphologic terms, character matrices, and identification tools are being developed for corals and mollusks. Interactive geographic maps and stratigraphic columns have been designed to provide information about taxa collected at different locations.

Diverse assemblages of silicified microfossils have been detected in lenses of black chert within peritidal carbonates of the Neoproterozoic (Upper Riphean) Shorikha and Burovaya formations, Turukhansk Uplift, northeastern Siberia. These microbiotas are represented by 19 species of simple filamentous and coccoidal microfossils, multicellular trichomes, and thick-enveloped sphaeromorphic and acanthomorphic acritarchs. Microfossils include both prokaryotic (possibly cyanobacterial) and eukaryotic (mainly phytoplanktonic) microorganisms. The eukaryotes in these formations are relatively diverse—the result of an explosive radiation near the Meso-Neoproterozoic boundary. The discovery of abundant phytoplanktonic microorganisms in the Shorikha and Burovaya cherts increases the biostratigraphical potential of Proterozoic silicified microbiotas and fills a gap in the paleontological record of the Turukhansk Uplift, a potential candidate for the stratotype of the Meso-Neoproterozoic boundary. The affinities of the formally described taxa are postulated as follows: Oscillatoriaceae: Eomicrocoleus crassus Horodyski and Donaldson, 1980; Oscillatoriopsis obtusa Schopf and Blacic, 1971; O. media Mendelson and Schopf, 1982; Oscillatoriaceae or Nostocaceae: Siphonophycus robustum (Schopf, 1968); S. typicum (Hermann, 1974); S. solidum (Golub, 1979); Nostocaceae or Stigonemataceae: Archaeoellipsoides minor (Golovenoc and Belova, 1984); Chroococcaceae: Gloeodiniopsis lamellosa Schopf, 1968, Eosynechococcus grandis Hofmann, 1976; Incertae sedis: Scissilisphaera gradata Green, Knoll and Swett, 1989; Myxococcoides minor Schopf, 1968; M. inornata Schopf, 1968; M. stragulescens Green, Knoll, and Swett, 1989; Myxococcoides sp.; Pterospermopsimorpha? sp.; Shorikhosphaeridium knolli new genus and species; Leiosphaeridia jacutica (Timofeev); problematic ellipsoidal forms; and problematic spiny forms.

Early Permian (late Leonardian Series) plant assemblages from King, Knox, and Stonewall Counties of North-Central Texas are dominated by seed plants, some apparently congeneric with taxa heretofore known only from the Late Permian or the Mesozoic. Conifers are the dominant elements, including one or more species of Ullmannia, Pseudovoltzia liebeana, both known from the Late Permian Zechstein flora of Germany and England, Podozamites sp., characteristic of the Mesozoic, and Walchia sp., abundant in Early Permian floras. Locally common are Taeniopteris cf. eckardtii, a Zechstein species, an unidentified plant represented by pinnulelike laminae with fine parallel veins, similar to pinnules of some Mesozoic cycads, and calamite stems. Rarely encountered are leaf fragments of the Paleozoic ginkgophyte Dicranophyllum, flabellate ginkgophyte leaves, leaves with a broad midvein and narrow, fimbriate lamina, and Wattia, typical of the Early Permian. Associated with these foliar remains are ovulate reproductive structures including the presumed cycad megasporophyll Dioonitocarpidium, known only from the Mesozoic, a voltzialean cone scale similar to Swedenborgia, and a variety of seeds, some remarkably similar to Agathis, of Cretaceous age. The assemblage includes only rare scraps of foliage and seeds possibly attributable to the pteridophyllous elements (gigantopterids, callipterids, and ferns) that dominate the Permian. The fossil plants occur in multistorey, fining-upwards, tidal-channel deposits that also include pelecypods and fragmentary palaeoniscoid fish. The occurrence of derived lineages in xeric habitats during the Early Permian indicates that some supposed Mesozoic groups actually preceded and survived the end-Permian extinction, reappearing in basinal lowlands during the mid-Mesozoic.

Fossilized opercula are uncommon in Paleozoic rocks, and shells with the operculum in place are rare. A single specimen with the operculum in place was discovered by P. Slehofer in a concretion in the Ordovician Zahorany Formation of the Prague Basin. Formerly known as Trochonema excavatum Barrande in Perner, 1903, the species is the basis of the new genus Slehoferia. Perner (1903) reported the shell of the same species from two localities, and additional specimens without the operculum are in the collections of the National Museum and Czech Geological Survey. Studied material is deposited in the paleontological collection of the Czech Geological Survey, Prague.

The early radiation of Cetacea took place in the eastern Tethys region (Thewissen, 1998; Williams, 1998), and included the endemic Indo-Pakistani family Remingtonocetidae. In India, remingtonocetids are only known from Kachchh (=Kutch, Gujarat, western India), the classical marine middle Eocene sequence for the Indian subcontinent, which has yielded the genera Kutchicetus, Remingtonocetus, and Andrewsiphius (Sahni and Mishra, 1975; Kumar and Sahni, 1986; Bajpai and Thewissen, 1998). In Pakistan, two remingtonocetids, Remingtonocetus and Dalanistes, have been described by Gingerich et al. (1995) from the Sulaiman Range. A third genus, Attockicetus, is known from the Kala Chitta Hills (Thewissen and Hussain, 2000).