Taxonomy and stratigraphic distribution of Lotagnostus (Agnostida: Agnostidae) and associated trilobites and conodonts in the Upper Cambrian (Furongian) of Laurentia.

Two Lotagnostus-dominated faunas from the Windfall Formation at Ninemile Canyon in the Antelope Range of Nevada, USA, are described: an older Lotagnostus nolani Fauna and younger L. rushtoni Fauna. The former is dominated by two morphs of Lotagnostus, one strongly scrobiculate and the other smooth to weakly scrobiculate.

The origin of conodonts and of vertebrate mineralized skeletons.

Conodonts are an extinct group of jawless vertebrates whose tooth-like elements are the earliest instance of a mineralized skeleton in the vertebrate lineage, inspiring the 'inside-out' hypothesis that teeth evolved independently of the vertebrate dermal skeleton and before the origin of jaws. However, these propositions have been based on evidence from derived euconodonts. Here we test hypotheses of a paraconodont ancestry of euconodonts using synchrotron radiation X-ray tomographic microscopy to characterize and compare the microstructure of morphologically similar euconodont and paraconodont elements.

Fossilized embryos are widespread but the record is temporally and taxonomically biased.

We report new discoveries of embryos and egg capsules from the Lower Cambrian of Siberia, Middle Cambrian of Australia and Lower Ordovician of North America. Together with existing records, embryos have now been recorded from four of the seven continents. However, the new discoveries highlight secular and systematic biases in the fossil record of embryonic stages.