You heard it here first: Multituberculates had placental reproduction

…because multituberculates nest within Placentalia in the large reptile tree (LRT, 2206 taxa). That nesting happened in 2012. Ten years later, Weaver et al 2022 reported,“Multituberculate bone histology closely resembles that of placentals, suggesting that they had similar life history … Continue reading

EAVP 2021: You heard it here first: results support a Cretaceous origin for placental mammals

Carlisle, Sivestro and Donoghue 2021 report, “Recent molecular clock analyses have suggested that placental mammals originated in the mid- to late Cretaceous, before the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction. However, there are no unequivocal fossils of placental mammals from the Cretaceous … Continue reading

Your heard it here first: Prorotodactylus trackmaker ‘most likely a lepidosaur,’ not a dinosauromorph

Klein and Lucas 2021 wrote:“Trackmaker: Brusatte et al. (2011) and Niedżwiedzki et al. (2013) attributed Prorotodactylus to dinosauromorph trackmakers similar to the trackmaker of Rotodactylus (Haubold, 1999). However, archosauromorph and even lepidosauromorph trackmakers cannot be excluded (see also discussion in … Continue reading

You heard it here first: Ichthyostega and Acanthostega were secondarily aquatic

In this YouTube video from 2018 Dr. Donald Henderson starts his online slide video presentation by repeating the traditional fin-to-finger story (Fig. 1). Unfortunately that story was already out-of-date in 2018 due to taxon exclusion in comparison to and competition … Continue reading

SVP abstracts 4: You heard it here first: a long-snouted marine osteoglossomorph

Capobianco and Friedman 2020 document a long-snouted osteoglossid (primitive bony fish). From the Capobianco and Friedman abstract: “The fossil record of osteoglossid fishes (commonly known as bonytongues) includes several marine taxa found in early Paleogene deposits worldwide.” By contrast, the … Continue reading

You heard it here first: Others also doubt the theropod affinities of Oculudentavis

The now famous tiny skull in amber, Oculudentavis,  (Fig. 1; Xing et al. 2020) continues as a topic of conversation following its online publication in Nature and two previous PH posts here and here. Several workers have also thrown cold … Continue reading

Flugsaurier 2018: Pterosaur crest and pelvis news – you heard it here first

Flugsaurier 2018 part 6 Since the purpose of the symposium is increase understanding of pterosaurs, I hope this small contribution helps. Cheng, Jiang, Wang and Kellner 2018 concluded: “The size of pelvic channel and the presence and absence of premaxillary crest … Continue reading

You heard it here first: Orovenator had diapsid AND varanopid traits—for good reason!

This is a YouTube video of a talk given by postgraduate David Ford recorded at The 65th Symposium on Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy, University of Birmingham. His incredibly detailed  observations found diapsid traits AND varanopid traits, which was cause for … Continue reading