The last hadrosaurid dinosaurs of Europe: A new lambeosaurine from the Uppermost Cretaceous of Aren (Huesca, Spain)

A new hadrosaurid dinosaur, Arenysaurus ardevoli gen. et sp. nov., from the Late Maastrichtian of Aren (Huesca, South-central Pyrenees) is described on the basis of a partial, articulated skull, mandibular remains and postcranial elements, including vertebrae, girdle and limb bones. Arenysaurus is characterized by having a very prominent frontal dome; nearly vertical prequadratic (squamosal) and jugal (postorbital) processes, and deltopectoral crest of the humerus oriented anteriorly. Moreover, it possesses a unique combination of characters: short frontal (length/width approximately 0.5); midline ridge of parietal at level of the postorbital-squamosal bar; parietal excluded from the occiput; squamosal low above the cotyloid cavity. A phylogenetical analysis indicates that Arenysaurus is a rather basal member of Lambeosaurinae and the sister-taxon to Amurosaurus and the Corythosaurini-Parasaurolophini clade. The phylogenetic and biogeographical relationships of Arenysaurus and other lambeosaurines suggest a palaeogeographical connection between Asia and Europe during the Late Cretaceous.     

The controversial contribution to dental research made by Albert Schatz-Co-discoverer of streptomycin

In addition to being co-discoverer of the antibiotic streptomycin the American microbiologist and soil scientist, Albert Schatz did ground breaking dental research. His major contribution is the Proteolysis–Chelation theory, but he also did research on fluoridation where he emphasised the overlooked involvement of so-called paradoxical effects. His research led him to become an active supporter of anti-fluoridation campaigns. The following article discusses Schatz’s important and largely overlooked contribution to dentistry.     

Silver coelacanths from Spain are not proofs of a Pre-scientific Discovery

In 1964 and 1965, two silver fish pendants depicting coelacanths and thought to be religious votive from Spanish churches were purchased on the art market in Spain, dated between the 17th and late 19th century, long before the discovery for science of the living coelacanth in 1938. It was speculated that they originated either from the Mediterranean, subtropical Atlantic, or subtropical Pacific (de Sylva 1966, Bruton 1985, Anonymous 1993, Greenwell 1994, Raynold & Mangiacopra 1995). Some authors believe that the silver fish pendants represent a new species of coelacanthiforms (Raynold & Mangiacopra 1995), others claimed the pendants to be only a wishful fantasy of scientists and not coelacanths at all (Thomson 1991). However, new studies revealed that the silver fish artefacts are indeed coelacanths but were in fact produced more recently with the Comorian coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae, as a model.     

Cytology and mendelism: early connection between Michael F. Guyer's contribution

This paper examines the contribution of the PhD dissertation of the American cytologist Michael F. Guyer (1874-1959) to the early establishment (in 1902-1903) of the parallel relationship between cytological chromosome behaviour in meiosis and Mendel's laws. Guyer's suggestions were among the first, which attempted to relate the variation observed in the offspring in hybridisation studies by a coherent cytological chromosome mechanism to meiosis before the rediscovery of Mendel's principles. This suggested for the first time that the chromosome mechanism involved a conjugation of maternal and paternal chromosomes during the synapsis followed by a segregation of parental chromosomes in the final germ cells and a random union of the final germ cells in the fertilization. It shows that this early suggestion was similar to William Austin Cannon's later chromosome proposal attempting to explain Mendel's principles and had some influence on Walter Sutton's cytological suggestion explaining correctly the behaviour of Mendel's particle by 1903.     

The names of Spain: a study of the isonymy structure of Spain

In order to estimate the isonymy structure of Spain, we studied surname distribution in 283 Spanish towns based on 3.625 million telephone users selected from 6.328 million users, downloaded from a commercial CD-ROM which contains all 13 million users in the country. Since in Spain the surname is made by the paternal and the maternal surname, it was possible to classify surnames according to parental origin. Two matrices of isonymy distances, one for paternal and one for maternal surnames, were constructed and tested for correlation with geographic distance. For the whole of Spain, Euclidean distance was significantly but weakly correlated with geographic distance both for paternal and maternal surnames, with r = 0.205 +/- 0.013 and r = 0.263 +/- 0.012, respectively. Two dendrograms of the 283 sampled towns were built from the two matrices of Euclidean distance. They are largely colinear. Four main clusters identified by the dendrograms are correlated with geography. Given the surname structure of Spain, we were able to calculate from isonymy and for each town 1). total or expressed inbreeding, 2). random or expected inbreeding, and 3). local inbreeding. Total inbreeding, F(IT), was highest in the North Atlantic regions and lowest along the Mediterranean Coast. The lowest levels were found in Andalusia, Catalunyia, Valencia, and Navarra. Random inbreeding, F(ST), had a similar geographical pattern. Local inbreeding, F(IS), was relatively uniform in the whole of Spain. In towns, random inbreeding dominates over local inbreeding. From the analysis, it emerges that the northwestern area of Spain is the most inbred.     

The evolution of cranial form and function in theropod dinosaurs: insights from geometric morphometrics

Theropod dinosaurs, an iconic clade of fossil species including Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor, developed a great diversity of body size, skull form and feeding habits over their 160+ million year evolutionary history. Here, we utilize geometric morphometrics to study broad patterns in theropod skull shape variation and compare the distribution of taxa in cranial morphospace (form) to both phylogeny and quantitative metrics of biting behaviour (function). We find that theropod skulls primarily differ in relative anteroposterior length and snout depth and to a lesser extent in orbit size and depth of the cheek region, and oviraptorosaurs deviate most strongly from the "typical" and ancestral theropod morphologies. Noncarnivorous taxa generally fall out in distinct regions of morphospace and exhibit greater overall disparity than carnivorous taxa, whereas large-bodied carnivores independently converge on the same region of morphospace. The distribution of taxa in morphospace is strongly correlated with phylogeny but only weakly correlated with functional biting behaviour. These results imply that phylogeny, not biting function, was the major determinant of theropod skull shape.     

The Hernando de Soto Expedition: History, Historiography, and "Discovery" in the Southeast; Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms

The Hernando de Soto Expedition: History, Historiography, and "Discovery" in the Southeast. Patricia Galloway. ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.458 pp.
Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms. Charles Hudson. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1997.562 pp.     

The dentary of hadrosauroid dinosaurs: evolution through heterochrony

The near-global distribution of hadrosaurid dinosaurs during the Cretaceous has been attributed to mastication, a behaviour commonly recognized as a mammalian adaptation. Its occurrence in a non-mammalian lineage should be accompanied by the evolution of several morphological modifications associated with food acquisition and processing. This study investigated morphological variation in the dentary, a major element of the hadrosauroid lower jaw. Eighty-four hadrosauroid dentaries were subjected to geometric morphometric and statistical analyses to investigate their taxonomic, ontogenetic, and individual variation. Results suggest increased food acquisition and processing efficiency in saurolophids through a complex pattern of evolutionary and growth-related changes. The edentulous region grew longer relative to dentary length, allowing for food acquisition specialization anteriorly and processing posteriorly, and became ventrally directed, possibly associated with foraging low-growing vegetation, especially in younger individuals. The saurolophid coronoid process became anteriorly directed and relatively more elongate, with an expanded apex, increasing moment arm length, with muscles pulling the jaw more posteriorly, increasing mechanical advantage. During growth, all hadrosauroids underwent anteroposterior dental battery elongation by the addition of teeth, and edentulous region ventralization decreased. The dental battery became deeper in saurolophids by increasing the number of teeth per tooth family. The increased coronoid process anterior inclination and relative edentulous region elongation in saurolophids are hypothesized to have evolved through hypermorphosis and/or acceleration, peramorphic heterochronic processes; the development of an anteroposteriorly shorter but dorsoventrally taller saurolophid dentary, is probably due to post-displacement in dental battery elongation and edentulous region decreased ventral orientation, a paedomorphic heterochronic process.     

The origin and early evolution of dinosaurs

The oldest unequivocal records of Dinosauria were unearthed from Late Triassic rocks (approximately 230 Ma) accumulated over extensional rift basins in southwestern Pangea. The better known of these are Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis, Pisanosaurus mertii, Eoraptor lunensis, and Panphagia protos from the Ischigualasto Formation, Argentina, and Staurikosaurus pricei and Saturnalia tupiniquim from the Santa Maria Formation, Brazil. No uncontroversial dinosaur body fossils are known from older strata, but the Middle Triassic origin of the lineage may be inferred from both the footprint record and its sister‐group relation to Ladinian basal dinosauromorphs. These include the typical Marasuchus lilloensis, more basal forms such as Lagerpeton and Dromomeron, as well as silesaurids: a possibly monophyletic group composed of Mid‐Late Triassic forms that may represent immediate sister taxa to dinosaurs. The first phylogenetic definition to fit the current understanding of Dinosauria as a node‐based taxon solely composed of mutually exclusive Saurischia and Ornithischia was given as “all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of birds and Triceratops”. Recent cladistic analyses of early dinosaurs agree that Pisanosaurus mertii is a basal ornithischian; that Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis and Staurikosaurus pricei belong in a monophyletic Herrerasauridae; that herrerasaurids, Eoraptor lunensis, and Guaibasaurus candelariensis are saurischians; that Saurischia includes two main groups, Sauropodomorpha and Theropoda; and that Saturnalia tupiniquim is a basal member of the sauropodomorph lineage. On the contrary, several aspects of basal dinosaur phylogeny remain controversial, including the position of herrerasaurids, E. lunensis, and G. candelariensis as basal theropods or basal saurischians, and the affinity and/or validity of more fragmentary taxa such as Agnosphitys cromhallensis, Alwalkeria maleriensis, Chindesaurus bryansmalli, Saltopus elginensis, and Spondylosoma absconditum. The identification of dinosaur apomorphies is jeopardized by the incompleteness of skeletal remains attributed to most basal dinosauromorphs, the skulls and forelimbs of which are particularly poorly known. Nonetheless, Dinosauria can be diagnosed by a suite of derived traits, most of which are related to the anatomy of the pelvic girdle and limb. Some of these are connected to the acquisition of a fully erect bipedal gait, which has been traditionally suggested to represent a key adaptation that allowed, or even promoted, dinosaur radiation during Late Triassic times. Yet, contrary to the classical “competitive” models, dinosaurs did not gradually replace other terrestrial tetrapods over the Late Triassic. In fact, the radiation of the group comprises at least three landmark moments, separated by controversial (Carnian‐Norian, Triassic‐Jurassic) extinction events. These are mainly characterized by early diversification in Carnian times, a Norian increase in diversity and (especially) abundance, and the occupation of new niches from the Early Jurassic onwards. Dinosaurs arose from fully bipedal ancestors, the diet of which may have been carnivorous or omnivorous. Whereas the oldest dinosaurs were geographically restricted to south Pangea, including rare ornithischians and more abundant basal members of the saurischian lineage, the group achieved a nearly global distribution by the latest Triassic, especially with the radiation of saurischian groups such as “prosauropods” and coelophysoids.     

The first giant dinosaurs: a large sauropod from the Late Triassic of Thailand

Newly discovered sauropod material from the Upper Triassic of northeastern Thailand reveals that some of the earliest sauropods had already reached a very large size. A 1 m long humerus is within the size range of large Jurassic sauropods such as Camarasaurus and suggests an animal reaching a length of 12 to 15 m. It took sauropodomorph dinosaurs some 20 million years to produce giant forms, a rapid size increase when compared with that observed in the evolution of other dinosaurs, such as ornithischians. To cite this article: E. Buffetaut et al., C. R. Palevol 1 (2002) 103–109.     

Inbreeding in Gredos mountain range (Spain): contribution of multiple consanguinity and intervalley variation.

The present paper examines consanguineous marriages occurring between 1874 and 1975 in three valleys (Tormes, Alberche, and Tiétar) in the Sierra de Gredos mountain range, Avila province, Spain. Information was obtained from parish registers of 42 localities, corresponding to a total of 41,696 weddings. Consanguineous marriages were defined as those up to the third degree of consanguinity (second cousins). From 1874 to 1975 the percentage of related mates was 4.45% and the inbreeding coefficient was 0.0011868 (for 1874 to 1917 corresponding figures up to the fourth degree were 16.44% and 0.00 19085, respectively). In order to ascertain the characteristics and evolution of mating patterns in Gredos, the contribution of each degree of kinship was analyzed as a whole and then for each valley separately. Regarding total consanguineous marriages in Gredos, there is a low frequency of uncle-niece matings (0.21%) and a first-second cousin mating ratio (C22/C33) of 0.23 (up to the third degree of consanguinity). Before 1918 multiple matings (i.e., those involving more than a single relationship) accounted for 19.16% of consanguineous marriages (up to the fourth degree). The observed frequencies of multiple consanguineous marriages was, on average, about twice that expected at random, and the proportion of such marriages to total inbreeding was 34.65%. The temporal change of the Gredos inbreeding pattern was characterized by a recent decrease; the highest inbreeding levels correspond to the period from 1915 to 1944. Finally, intervalley differences (maximum inbreeding coefficient in the Tormes, minimum in the Tiétar) are interpreted considering the geography, population size, and population mobility for each valley     

Aeromycological study in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (Spain)

A study of airborne fungi was carried out in the architectural complex of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) during 2002, by using viable volumetric sampling methods. This resulted in a total of 35 identified taxa, of which the most abundant were: Alternaria, Aspergillus, Cladosporium and Penicillium. Sampling was completed with data from the outdoor atmosphere and swab samples in specific places.In general there were no statistically significant indoor/outdoor differences and in both cases the highest CFU m-3 were obtained during the spring-summer. Similar relatively low numbers of the same fungi were likewise detected at different points in the Cathedral nave, while up to nearly 6500 CFU m-3 were recorded in the Corticela Chapel. The study of intradiurnal levels carried out in the Cathedral nave reveals greater abundance of fungal concentrations at 13:00 h, the moment of massive influx of visitors in the Cathedral, with 406 CFU m-3 compared to the 380 CFU m-3 sampled at 9:00 h and the 350 CFU m-3 at 21:00 h. The whole investigation is the first study of the atmospheric fungal content of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.