Plant fossils from the Tertiary strata of the Great Plains are relatively common and have been reported for over 100 years (Stansbury, 1852; Elias, 1942; Thomasson, 1979, 1985, 1991; Gabel, 1987). However, fossils of the family Cyperaceae are uncommon at most sites in Tertiary strata of central North America.

A new morphological type of Paleozoic calcareous alga is represented by Calcipatera cottonwoodensis n. gen. and sp., a codiacean species found in the Cottonwood Limestone Member, Lower Permian, of eastern Kansas. The new species, as reconstructed from serial sections of weathered out, in situ, intact specimens, had a broadly obconical, cup-like membranous thallus. The internal structure of the membrane as seen in cross section consisted of a medulla with mosaic sparry calcite and bilateral cortices with calcite packets forming utricular molds similar to those of other known membranous algae. The sparry calcite apparently replaced the lightly calcified or uncalcified intercoenocytic spaces in the medulla and the calcite crystals replaced the interutricular aragonite. The organism had previously been identified as Anchicodium Johnson.

Four hybocrinid and disparid crinoids from the Middle Ordovician Dunleith Formation (Galena Group) of northern Iowa and southern Minnesota are described: Hybocrinus conicus Billings, Ohiocrinus levorsoni n. sp., Caleidocrinus (Huxleyocrinus) gerki n. sp., and Ectenocrinus simplex (Hall). The first three taxa are rare. Ectenocrinus simplex is an abundant and protean form ranging from the Shermanian to the Maysville and from the Appalachians to the Midcontinent. One Middle Ordovician specimen from the Dunleith is a complete small adult with stem and a lichenocrinid holdfast. The column was largely upright with the crown located about 25 cm above the seafloor. The Middle Ordovician crinoids differ somewhat from the later Cincinnatian material where only young E. simplex exhibit lichenocrinid holdfasts. Older crinoids became detached and were eleutherozoic well before the column was 25 cm long. Thus, the Cincinnatian individuals lost the attachment device earlier during ontogeny than their ancestors in the Middle Ordovician. Unlike most associated crinoids, E. simplex formed a roughly conical filtration net. The arms of E. simplex are extensively branched. Ten main arms bear unbranched ramules on alternate brachials, and the arm structure converges on the pinnulate pattern. Narrow food grooves and short covering plates are present. Analogies with living crinoids indicate that small food particles were caught by small and close-spaced tube-feet. The formation of new plates and ramules at the arm tips increases the size of the food-gathering system throughout ontogeny. The food-gathering capacity comprises the number of food-catching tube-feet times the width of the food grooves, and it measures the number and size of food particles that can be caught. Both size and capacity of the food-gathering system are positively allometric compared to crown volume and the amount of tissue that must be nourished. This is mainly caused by the addition of new ramules at the arm tips, which generates an exponentially increasing plate supply rate. Examination of numerous specimens from various geographic and stratigraphic horizons with multivariate statistics shows that the species was homogeneous throughout its range aside from the differences in living habits mentioned above.

The generic name Petrostroma proposed by Stearn (1991) for a Paleozoic stromatoporoid with type species Petrostroma simplex (Nestor, 1966) is preoccupied by a calcareous sponge described in 1892 by Döderlein.

As Torres (1991) and others have noted, the term “algae” no longer refers to a taxonomically useful group. It does, though, refer to an easily recognized adaptive facies. This adaptive facies contains both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, as do various others (e.g., nanoplankton or decomposers). The blue-green algae are thus indeed algae in this useful sense. More than terminology is involved, because a concept like that of adaptive facies can be forgotten if we focus solely on taxa. The terms “proalgae” and “eualgae” can be used transparently when we want to distinguish prokaryotic from eukaryotic algae. “Proalgae” has in fact been proposed as a formal taxon (Van Valen, 1986); the terms come from Van Valen and Maiorana (1980). Similarly, one can refer to the nonhomologous kinds of flagellae as proflagellae and euflagellae while retaining a general term.

Four new species are assigned to Vogelgnathus Norby and Rexroad because of the close similarity of their Pb and ramiform elements to those of the type species, V. campbelli (Rexroad). Recognition of the four new species requires that the generic diagnosis, based almost exclusively on the morphology of V. campbelli, be modified, chiefly to accommodate greater variation in Pa element morphology. Vogelgnathus dhindsai n. sp., V. gladiolus n. sp., V. kyphus n. sp., and V. pesaquidi n. sp. all possess abbreviated, carminiscaphate Pa elements. Spathognathodus postcampbelli Austin and Husri is reassigned to the genus.

The origins of Vogelgnathus are uncertain but V. gladiolus first appeared in the early Viséan and gave rise to V. pesaquidi. The latter species appears to represent the rootstock from which V. kyphus, V. campbelli, and V. dhindsai evolved. Vogelgnathus postcampbelli evolved from V. campbelli during the late Viséan.

Vogelgnathus campbelli and, to a lesser extent, V. postcampbelli have a wide geographic distribution; the four new species, however, are currently known only from Atlantic Canada, northern England, and southwest Scotland.

Species of Baculites are important marker fossils in the Upper Cretaceous rocks of the Western Interior of the United States and provide indices for 20 of the 29 Campanian and Maastrichtian zones recognized by Cobban (in Gill and Cobban, 1966; Cobban, 1977). They often occur in rock-forming proportions (Gill and Cobban, 1966, Pl. 11, fig. 3) and are common up through the lower Maastrichtian Baculites clinolobatus zone. In the type area of the Fox Hills Formation in west-central South Dakota, B. clinolobatus is present in the lower part of the Mobridge Member of the Pierre Shale, but Baculites are rare or absent in the rest of the member as well as in the overlying Elk Butte Member that forms the uppermost part of the Pierre Shale (Waage, 1968, p. 50, 51, fig. 6). Only the diminutive Baculites columna Morton, 1834, has been noted from the succeeding Fox Hills Formation (Waage, 1968). The highest marine Cretaceous rocks of the Western Interior are characterized instead by Sphenodiscus and a range of scaphitid species (Hoploscaphites, Discoscaphites). It is therefore of some interest to describe, for the first time, the baculitids from the very high Cretaceous of the Western Interior. The material described below was collected from the Fox Hills Formation by N. L. Larson, P. L. Larson, and R. A. Farrar of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, Hill City, South Dakota. We are grateful to them for allowing us to describe this interesting collection. Specimens cited below are deposited in the collections of the Black Hills Institute (BHI) and in the U.S. National Museum of Natural History (USNM) in Washington, D.C.

The occurrence of the large ichthyosaur Cymbospondylus in the Middle Triassic of Spitsbergen is recognized based on two different specimens. One consists of a semiarticulated string of 17 dorsal vertebrae with associated ribs and the other of an anterior dorsal vertebral centrum and possibly a caudal vertebral centrum. Both specimens can only be identified as Cymbospondylus sp. This record fills a gap in the distribution of Cymbospondylus, establishing this genus as the second most widespread Triassic ichthyosaur after Mixosaurus.

The genus Plicoplasia Boucot, 1959 (type species P. cooperi Boucot, 1959), embraces certain Lower Devonian brachiopods of the subfamily Ambocoeliinae, family Ambocoeliidae. The geographic range of Plicoplasia includes North America (Eastern Americas Realm) and South America and South Africa (Malvinokaffric Realm).

Paraorthacodus conicus (Davis, 1890) of the family Palaeospinacidae, but previously believed to be a mako shark (family Lamnidae), and P. andersoni (Case, 1978), until now reported only from the Judith River Formation of Montana, are both described from the Late Cretaceous of the Kristianstad Basin, southern Sweden. The name Synechodus nerviensis Leriche, 1929, is a junior synonym of P. conicus and Synechodus striatus Case, 1978, is likewise a junior synonym of P. andersoni.

A fossil counterpart to ths extant marine noncalcareous green algal genus Caulerpa was recovered from Permian (Wolfcampian) marine sediments of the Palo Duro Basin, a part of the larger Permian Basin, West Texas. These fossil algal remains were recognized in core from the Department of Energy/Stone and Webster Engineering Corporation No. 1 Zeech well (Figure 1). The fossil form is described and compared to a morphologically similar extant species of Caulerpa. The geologic setting of the Palo Duro Basin is also briefly described as is the environment in which the modern algal genus Caulerpa lives.

In a recent article, Narbonne et al. (1991) documented that the stratigraphic range of the chondrophorine Kullingia delicata continues above the the uppermost Precambrian (Vendian) into the lowermost Cambrian (Placentian Series) of the Avalonian faunal province. The revised text published in the Journal of Paleontology includes several references to Scenella Billings, 1872, as a Cambrian chondrophorine. This classification is in error and unfortunately serves to reinforce several recent reports that conclude that Scenella is a chondrophorine rather than a helcionacean mollusk.

Stagodontid marsupials were a common component of late Mesozoic vertebrate faunas of the Western Interior of North America and were among the largest mammals that coexisted with Late Cretaceous dinosaurs. Two genera have been described, Didelphodon and Eodelphis; three if Pariadens (?Stagodontidae) from the Cenomanian of Utah (Cifelli and Eaton, 1987) is included. The dental arcade of stagodontids is notable for the presence of bulbous premolars, each with a massive main cusp and a large accessory lobe. The most complete stagodontid material consists of a maxillary fragment and a few nearly complete dentaries referred to Didelphodon (see Clemens, 1968, 1973; Fox and Naylor, 1986). However, the configuration of the anterior upper dentition of Didelphodon and other stagodontids is uncertain because of the lack of specimens preserving this portion of the skull. Thus, based on isolated teeth, upper premolars of Didelphodon have been interpreted to have been oriented with their accessory lobes either on their labial (Clemens, 1966) or lingual (Clemens, 1968; Lillegraven, 1969; Archibald, 1982; Fox and Naylor, 1986) sides.

In 1968, R. H. Kilpatrick of Milton, Florida, discovered three large entelodont teeth in the bed of the Conecuh River in Alabama. Frank C. Whitmore, Jr. of the U.S. Geological Survey identified the specimens, visited the fossil locality, and began a study of this unique find. Two decades later, Whitmore realized that devotion to his true research interest, the study of fossil cetaceans, would not allow him time to complete the study of the entelodont remains. He generously passed the specimens on to the writer to finish the project for which he had laid the groundwork.