Accurately identifying evolutionarily significant units (ESUs) is crucial for conservation planning, especially for species like pangolins threatened by overhunting and habitat loss. ESUs help categorize different pangolin populations, aiding in understanding their genetic diversity and distribution, which is vital for targeted conservation efforts. This research generated mitochondrial genomes from historical museum specimens of Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) from underrepresented locations, uncovering a new evolutionary lineage from the Mentawai Islands. The novel sequences provide resources for forensic labs tracing the origin of confiscated scales and limit the potential distribution of the "mysterious pangolin." The Mentawai Archipelago represents a divergent ESU with a small distribution, important for conservation planning. Additionally, this research confirmed the presence of two major M. javanica lineages in Java and extended the known distribution to Bali and East Kalimantan. These findings support the "Out of Borneo" hypothesis and suggest a recent colonization of pangolins across Indochina and west Sundaland. This study also highlights the need for further investigation into the taxonomic status of these lineages and their management as subspecies.

We present a detailed description of an incomplete but excellently preserved braincase and a digitally generated endocast of a pseudosuchian archosaur from the Upper Triassic (Carnian) Evangeline Member of the Wolfville Formation of Nova Scotia (Canada). The general morphology of the braincase particularly resembles that of the rauisuchid Postosuchus kirkpatricki from the Upper Triassic (Norian) of Texas. Indeed, the quantitative phylogenetic analyses found the Wolfville specimen within Rauisuchidae (Postosuchus spp., Polonosuchus silesiacus, and Rauisuchus tiradentes) among loricatan pseudosuchians based on the presence of a deep and dorsoventrally elongate basisphenoid recess. Although the specimen described here shows differences with Postosuchus kirkpatricki and Postosuchus alisonae, its fragmentary condition and the absence of overlapping elements with other rauisuchids (Polonosuchus silesiacus and Rauisuchus tiradentes) led us to be cautious and identify it as aff. Postosuchus sp. The Wolfville rauisuchid braincase provides evidence for the presence of this clade in low paleolatitudes during the Carnian, bridging the higher paleolatitude occurrences of Rauisuchidae in southern Brazil and in Poland, respectively.

This upload contains the R code and files (.nex, .tree, and .csv) necessary to reproduce the results of Widrig et al. 2025 "Quantitative analysis of stem-palaeognath flight capabilities sheds light on ratite dispersal and flight loss". The R workspace image and .stl file of the Lithornis promiscuus sternum are also included.

This upload contains the R code and files (.nex, .tree, and .csv) necessary to reproduce the results of Widrig et al. 2025 "Quantitative analysis of stem-palaeognath flight capabilities sheds light on ratite dispersal and flight loss". The R workspace image and .stl file of the Lithornis promiscuus sternum are also included.

In whales, extreme modifications to the ancestral mammalian feeding apparatus facilitate novel modes of aquatic feeding. These modifications manifest in morphological diversity across a suite of characters, including the mandibular symphysis. Cetaceans span a range of symphyseal morphologies, with one lineage (crown mysticetes) evolving a highly mobile condition unique among mammals. Here, we use phylogenetic comparative methods to examine the evolution of symphyseal fusion and elongation across 206 extant and fossil cetacean taxa. Ancestral state reconstructions corroborate observations from the fossil record that suggest the ancestral condition for Cetacea was a fused, moderately elongated symphysis. Shifts in symphyseal morphology coincided with ocean restructuring and diversification of feeding modes. Evolutionary rates peaked in the middle-late Eocene and at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary as whales evolved shorter, unfused symphyses. During the Eocene, ankylosed mandibles became less common with the appearance of increasingly pelagic whales. Mysticetes evolved decoupled, highly mobile mandibles near the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. Several odontocete lineages underwent a trait reversal and converged on fully fused, elongated mandibles in the Miocene. Analyses evaluating the influence of ecological variables indicate strong correlations in feeding strategy, dentition, and prey type. The loss of prey-processing behavior and changes to masticatory loading regimes may explain concurrent trends in symphyseal morphology and tooth simplification. We suggest that the functional and morphological diversity of the symphysis in whales is a consequence of aquatic feeding imposing different mechanical constraints than those associated with feeding on land.

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was the largest early Cenozoic hyperthermal event, one of a series of carbon cycle and climate perturbations marked by massive releases of carbon into the atmosphere and spikes in global temperature. Previous studies have documented major changes in the composition of terrestrial plant and animal communities during the PETM, as well as changes in arthropod herbivory. Here we examine possible changes in pollination mode during the PETM in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA, as inferred from three lines of evidence: (1) the prevalence of fossil pollen preserved as clumps, (2) the pollination mode of nearest living relatives (NLR), and (3) angiosperm pollen morphological diversity. These suggest animal pollination became more common and wind pollination less common during the PETM. The decrease in wind pollination during the PETM reflects the basin-scale extirpation of wind-pollinated lineages and their replacement by dominantly animal-pollinated lineages due to rapid warming and drying. The hotter and more seasonally dry climates not only facilitated the northward range shift of plant taxa, but also their insect and/or vertebrate pollinators. The dramatic floral changes during the PETM in the Bighorn Basin may also have changed available resources for insect and/or vertebrate pollinators.

Aim: Evolutionary diversification and diversity patterns in Neotropical freshwater fishes can, in part, be predicted by the effects of geomorphological settings on landscape evolution. However, studies at a continental scale, focusing on specific taxa that reflect the tight connection between their evolutionary history and orogenic uplifts on the tectonically active Western margin and watershed migration dynamics on the passive Eastern margin of South America remain limited. Here, we investigated biogeographical and chronological patterns of diversification in the geographically widespread teleost family Erythrinidae (Characiformes, Erythrinoidea). Location: Neotropical Region Time period: Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic Taxon: Erythrinidae (Characiformes) Methods: We used phylogenomic and parametric biogeographic methods. Our dataset based on ultraconserved elements (UCEs) included 29 erythrinoid lineages and 23 related taxa. Results: The time calibration along with ancestral area estimation proposes that superfamily Erythrinoidea originated in the Late Cretaceous ca. 80 Ma, with divergence of major clades during the Paleogene ca. 51–31 Ma. Erythrinidae diversified rapidly after the formation of the transcontinental Amazon River ca. 10 Ma, from eight lineages to at least 28 putative species today. A majority of erythrinid species (78%) are members of just three relatively young clades less than 13 Ma: Erythrinus, Hoplerythrinus, and Hoplias malabaricus group. Results present contrasting temporal patterns of cladogenetic events on the two continental margins: a pulsed age-distribution of biogeographic events on the Western Margin as predicted by discrete tectonic uplifts of the Northern Andean cordilleras, and a more continuous age-distribution on the Eastern Margin as predicted by westward-propagating watershed migration. Main conclusions: Historical changes in landscape connectivity have influenced diversification in Erythrinidae, where Late Neogene uplifts of the Northern Andean cordilleras profoundly structured freshwater diversity gradients by fragmenting the aquatic faunas of cis- and trans-Andean basins as well as portions of the sub-Andean Foreland basin, and merging faunas of the Western and Eastern Amazonia with the onset of the transcontinental Amazon River. Alternative diversification scenarios are also consistent with available paleontological, paleogeographic, and paleoenvironmental data.

This upload contains the R code and files (.nex, .tree, and .csv) necessary to reproduce the results of Widrig et al. 2025 Quantitative analysis of flight capacity in a Paleocene stem palaeognath. The R workspace image and .stl file of the Lithornis promiscuus sternum are also included.

We present the first global molecular phylogenetic hypothesis for the family Eurytomidae, a group of chalcidoid wasps with diverse biology, with a representative sampling (197 ingroups and 11 outgroups) that covers all described subfamilies, and 70% of the known genera. Analyses of 962 Ultra-Conserved Elements (UCEs) with concatenation (IQ-TREE) and multispecies coalescent approaches (ASTRAL) resulted in highly supported topologies in recovering the monophyly of Eurytomidae and its four subfamilies. The taxonomy of Eurytomidae, and in particular the large subfamily Eurytominae, needs major revisions as most large genera are recovered as para- or polyphyletic, and the erection of multiple new genera is required in the future to accommodate these taxa. Here, we synonymize the genera Cathilaria (C. certa, C. globiventris, C. opuntiae, and C. rigidae) and the monotypic Aiolomorphus rhopaloides within Tetramesa syn. nov., Parabruchophagus (P. kazakhstanicus, P. nikolskaji, P. rasnitsyni, P. saxatilis, and P. tauricus) and Exeurytoma (E. anatolica, E. caraganae, and E. kebanensis) within Bruchophagus syn. nov.. We also provide 137 DNA barcode COI fragments extracted from the UCE contigs to aid in future identifications of Eurytomidae using this popular genetic marker. Eurytomidae most likely originated in South America with an estimated crown age of 83.37 Ma. Ancestral state reconstruction indicates that secondary phytophagy has evolved at least seven times within the subfamily Eurytominae, showcasing the evolutionary flexibility of these vastly understudied wasps.

Theobroma cacao floral micro-CT datasets used to train UNETR for automated segmentationFull dataset of available images for training*CT datasets of mixed quality and contrast levels, segmentation files with some holes or missing structuresY582550.52