Paleontology

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

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

Synthetic analysis of trophic diversity and evolution in Enantiornithes with new insights from Bohaiornithidae

1. Case Vincent Miller
2. Jen A Bright
3. Xiaoli Wang
4. Xiaoting Zheng
5. Michael Pittman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study explores numerous lines of evidence for the surprisingly diverse diets of a group of toothed birds that lived over 100 million years ago. The large amount of data the authors collected forms a solid dataset. The methods might in principle be extensible to other limbed vertebrates, although there are concerns regarding some of the details. The article will be of interest to colleagues studying ecological evolution in birds or dinosaurs more generally, as well as to anyone studying the impact of the mass extinction event 66 million years ago.

Reviewed by eLife

Oxygen isotopes in orangutan teeth reveal recent and ancient climate variation

1. Tanya M Smith
2. Manish Arora
3. Christine Austin
4. Janaína Nunes Ávila
5. Mathieu Duval
6. Tze Tshen Lim
7. Philip J Piper
8. Petra Vaiglova
9. John de Vos
10. Ian S Williams
11. Jian-xin Zhao
12. Daniel R Green

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study presents convincing evidence for the use of orangutan teeth as terrestrial proxies to reconstruct rainfall regimes, while exploring the potentially conflicting impact of breastfeeding signals. The findings will be of broad interest for those using and developing methods and tools to reconstruct environmental conditions in the historical and archaeological past.

Reviewed by eLife

Zooarchaeological investigation of the Hoabinhian exploitation of reptiles and amphibians in Thailand and Cambodia with a focus on the Yellow-headed Tortoise (Indotestudo elongata (Blyth, 1854))

1. Corentin Bochaton
2. Sirikanya Chantasri
3. Melada Maneechote
4. Julien Claude
5. Christophe Griggo
6. Wilailuck Naksri
7. Hubert Forestier
8. Heng Sophady
9. Prasit Auertrakulvit
10. Jutinach Bowonsachoti
11. Valéry Zeitoun

Reviewed by Peer Community in Archaeology

An armoured marine reptile from the Early Triassic of South China and its phylogenetic and evolutionary implications

1. Andrzej S Wolniewicz
2. Yuefeng Shen
3. Qiang Li
4. Yuanyuan Sun
5. Yu Qiao
6. Yajie Chen
7. Yi-Wei Hu
8. Jun Liu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper describes an important new marine reptile specimen. A solid ostelogical description of the saurosphargid Prosaurosphargis yingzishanensis, the earliest known member of this group, combined with a large-scale phylogenetic analysis enhances our understanding of the affinities of a wide range of Triassic reptiles. As such the relevance of this paper goes far beyond the immediate importance of this remarkable fossil - it also sheds light on the position of several important Triassic groups, including Testudinata and Archosauromorpha.

Reviewed by eLife

Femora from an exceptionally large population of coeval ornithomimosaurs yield evidence of sexual dimorphism in extinct theropod dinosaurs

1. Romain Pintore
2. Raphaël Cornette
3. Alexandra Houssaye
4. Ronan Allain

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This is an important contribution to the field of dinosaur palaeontology. The authors provide convincing evidence for sexual dimorphism in dinosaurs, based on limb bones of ornithomimosaurs from the Cretaceous of France. The article makes several valuable and important contributions -- including the use of a large dataset and robust statistical approaches -- and will serve as a benchmark for future studies on dinosaurs and other fossil reptiles.

Reviewed by eLife

Survival of mineral-bound peptides into the Miocene

1. Beatrice Demarchi
2. Meaghan Mackie
3. Zhiheng Li
4. Tao Deng
5. Matthew J Collins
6. Julia Clarke

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The paper pushes the known preservation of ancient proteins, and their successful recovery, into the late Miocene. The results of the study also have implications for avian taxonomic classification. The findings reported in the paper are a welcome addition to the field of paleoproteomics and encourage future research on ancient proteins in deep antiquity and across various taxa. The paper will be of great interest to paleoscientists.

Reviewed by eLife