Paleontology

Classification of dinosaur footprints using machine learning

1. Michael Jones
2. Jens N. Lallensack
3. Ian Jarman
4. Peter Falkingham
5. Ivo Siekmann

Reviewed by preLights

Basal Cambrian soft-bodied segmented bilaterians preserved as microbial pseudomorphs

1. Xiaoguang Yang
2. Deng Wang
3. Zhiliang Zhang
4. Xing Wang
5. Jie Sun
6. Wenjing Hao
7. Yiqun Liu
8. Kentaro Uesugi
9. Tsuyoshi Komiya
10. Jian Han

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript describes valuable new material of small, unusually preserved fossils from deep in the Cambrian of China and argues they represent very early bilaterian animals such as annelids or panarthropods. The authors present convincing evidence of the fossilisation of specimens as microbial pseudomorphs, however, the fossils show few details and it is difficult to assess their affinity. The broader claims made about the timing and nature of the Cambrian explosion are inadequately supported by the material, given that bilaterians were already known to exist during that period.

Reviewed by eLife

New soft tissue data of pterosaur tail vane reveals sophisticated, dynamic tensioning usage and expands its evolutionary origins

1. Natalia Jagielska
2. Thomas G Kaye
3. Michael B Habib
4. Tatsuya Hirasawa
5. Michael Pittman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The presented soft tissue data of pterosaur tail vanes represent a valuable contribution to ongoing research efforts to decipher the flight abilities of pterosaurs in the fields of paleontology, comparative biomechanics, and bioinspired design. The new methods are compelling and give new detail on tail morphology, with a potential to resolve how pterosaurs were able to control and maintain tail stiffness to furnish flight control.

Reviewed by eLife

Multiple origins of dorsal ecdysial sutures in trilobites and their relatives

1. Kun-sheng Du
2. Jin Guo
3. Sarah R Losso
4. Stephen Pates
5. Ming Li
6. Ai-lin Chen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors present 16 new well-preserved specimens from the early Cambrian Chengjiang biota. These specimens potentially represent a new taxon which could be useful in sorting out the problematic topology of artiopodan arthropods - a topic of interest to specialists in Cambrian arthropods. The authors provide solid anatomical and phylogenetic evidence in support of a new interpretation of the homology of dorsal sutures in trilobites and their relatives.

Reviewed by eLife

Alasemenia, the earliest ovule with three wings and without cupule

1. Deming Wang
2. Jiangnan Yang
3. Le Liu
4. Yi Zhou
5. Peng Xu
6. Min Qin
7. Pu Huang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This useful study describes the second earliest known winged ovule without a capule in the Famennian of Late Devonian. Using solid mathematical analysis, the authors demonstrate that three-winged seeds are more adapted to wind dispersal than one-, two- and four-winged seeds. The manuscript will help the scientific community to understand the origin and early evolutionary history of wind dispersal strategy of early land plants.

Reviewed by eLife

Early evolution of the ecdysozoan body plan

1. Deng Wang
2. Yaqin Qiang
3. Junfeng Guo
4. Jean Vannier
5. Zuchen Song
6. Jiaxin Peng
7. Boyao Zhang
8. Jie Sun
9. Yilun Yu
10. Yiheng Zhang
11. Tao Zhang
12. Xiaoguang Yang
13. Jian Han

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study provides a fundamental advance in palaeontology by reporting the fossils of a new invertebrate, Beretella spinosa, and inferring its relationship with already described species. The analysis placed the newly described species in the earliest branch of moulting invertebrates. The study, supported by convincing fossil observation, hypothesizes that early moulting invertebrate animals were not vermiform.

Reviewed by eLife

The contribution of Mediterranean connectivity to morphological variability in Iron Age sheep of the Eastern Mediterranean

1. Sierra A. Harding
2. Angelos Hadjikoumis
3. Shyama Vermeersch
4. Roee Shafir
5. Nimrod Marom

Reviewed by Peer Community in Archaeology

Evolution of hind limb morphology of Titanosauriformes (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) analyzed via 3D Geometric Morphometrics reveals wide-gauge posture as an exaptation for gigantism

1. Adrian Paramo Blazquez
2. Pedro Mocho
3. Fernando Escaso
4. Francisco Ortega

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors present valuable findings on trends in hind limb morphology through the evolution of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaurs, the land animals that reached the most remarkable gigantic sizes. The solid results include the use of 3D geometric morphometrics to examine the femur, tibia, and fibula to provide new information on the evolution of this clade and on evolutionary trends between morphology and allometry. Further justification of the ontogenetic stages of the sampled individuals would help strengthen the manuscript's conclusions, and the inclusion of additional large-body mass taxa could provide expanded insights into the proposed trends.

Reviewed by eLife

The trunk replaces the longer mandible as the main feeding organ in elephant evolution

1. Chunxiao Li
2. Tao Deng
3. Yang Wang
4. Fajun Sun
5. Burt Wolff
6. Qigao Jiangzuo
7. Jiao Ma
8. Luda Xing
9. Jiao Fu
10. Ji Zhang
11. Shiqi Wang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents fundamental findings on the evolution of extremely elongated mandibular symphysis and tusks in longirostrine gomphotheres from the Early and Middle Miocene of northern China. The integration of multiple methods provides compelling results in the eco-morphology, behavioral ecology, and co-evolutionary biology of these taxa. In doing so, the authors elucidate the diversification of fossil proboscideans and their likely evolutionary responses to late Cenozoic global climatic changes.

Reviewed by eLife, PREreview

An Early Miocene skeleton of Brachydiceratherium Lavocat, 1951 (Mammalia, Perissodactyla) from the Baikal area, Russia, and a revised phylogeny of Eurasian teleoceratines

1. Alexander Sizov
2. Alexey Klementiev
3. Pierre-Olivier Antoine

Reviewed by Peer Community in Paleontology