A new trematopid from the lower Permian of Oklahoma and new insights into the genus Acheloma.

Modern-day terrestrial amphibians pale in comparison to their monstrous ancient relatives, the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian trematopid temnospondyls. With a skeleton that clearly indicated a terrestrial mode of life and armed with an impressive set of large, recurved marginal dentition and palatal fangs for holding their prey-this group of terrestrial temnospondyls roamed North America and Central Europe as a top predator. Lack of substantial informative fossil material has previously limited our understanding of trematopid diversity and ontogeny.

Paleozoic cave system preserves oldest-known evidence of amniote skin.

The richest and most diverse assemblage of early terrestrial tetrapods is preserved within the infilled cave system of Richards Spur, Oklahoma (289-286 Mya). Some of the oldest-known terrestrial amniotes are exquisitely preserved here because of early impregnation and encasement of organic material by oil-seep hydrocarbons within rapidly deposited clay-rich cave sediments under toxic anoxic conditions. This phenomenon has also afforded the preservation of exceedingly rare integumentary soft tissues, reported here, providing critical first evidence into the anatomical changes marking the transition from the aquatic and semiaquatic lifestyles of anamniotes to the fully terrestrial lifestyles of early amniotes.

An intriguing new diapsid reptile with evidence of mandibulo-dental pathology from the early Permian of Oklahoma revealed by neutron tomography.

The initial stages of diapsid evolution, the clade that includes extant reptiles and the majority of extinct reptilian taxa, is surprisingly poorly known. Notwithstanding the hypothesis that varanopids are diapsids rather than synapsids, there are only four araeoscelidians and one neodiapsid present in the late Carboniferous and early Permian. Here we describe the fragmentary remains of a very unusual new amniote from the famous cave deposits near Richards Spur, Oklahoma, that we recognize as a diapsid reptile, readily distinguishable from all other early amniotes by the unique dentition and lower jaw anatomy.

Oestrus synchronisation and superovulation alter the production and biochemical constituents of ovine cervicovaginal mucus.

Controlled breeding programmes utilising exogenous hormones are common in the Australian sheep industry, however the effects of such programmes on cervicovaginal mucus properties are lacking. As such, the aim of this study was to investigate cervicovaginal (CV) mucus from naturally cycling (NAT), progesterone synchronised (P4), prostaglandin synchronised (PGF2α), and superovulated (SOV) Merino ewes. Experiment 1; volume, colour, spinnbarkeit, chemical profile and protein concentration of mucus (NAT, P4, PGF2α and SOV; n=5 ewes/treatment) during the follicular (5 d) and luteal phases (8 d) was investigated.