The First Iguanodontid Dinosaur Tracks from the Swiss Alps (Schrattenkalk Formation,Aptian)

Until now dinosaur tracks from Switzerland were only known from Triassic and Late Jurassic strata. We report here for the first time the occurrence of ornithopod tracks from the Schrattenkalk Formation (Late Aptian) from the Swiss Central Alps. The locality is situated in an abandoned quarry on the shore of Lake Lucerne close to the village of Beckenried. The steeply inclined surface has more than 50 tracks (in three trackways) of ornithopod dinosaurs that are attributed to iguanodontids. Three trackways can be followed for distances of 25 to 35 m. The lengths the footprints (mean: 30 cm) point to animals ranging in size of from 4 to 6 m, with estimated hip heights between 1.8 and 2 m (hip height 6 FL) and 1.4 to 1.7 m (hip height 5 FL). One of the trackways shows two succesive manus impressions, indicating facultative quadrupedal gait. The track bearing layer consists of shallow water micrites with traces of emersion, and it is overlain by bioclastic grainstones. Previously the Upper Schrattenkalk Member in the Helvetic realm was thought to have formed on a large shelf far away from any continents. The present discovery will shed new light on the paleogeographic position of the Helvetic nappes.     

The effect of income on the extraction of non-timber tropical forest products: Model,hypotheses, and preliminary findings from the Sumu Indians of Nicaragua

We use microeconomic theory to frame hypotheses about the effects of income on the use of non-timber rain forest products. We hypothesize that an increase in income: (a) encourages foraging specialization, resulting in the extraction of fewer goods; (b) increases the share of household income from occupations besides foraging; (c) produces a yearly value from the extraction of nontimber forest goods of about $50 per hectare; and (d) produces depletion of forest goods entering commercial channels and sustainable extraction of goods facing cheaper industrial substitutes. To examine these hypotheses we present worldwide ethnographic information and preliminary findings from field work carried out among the Sumu Indians of Nicaragua. Field work suggests that higher income produces: (a) foraging specialization with animals rather than with plants; (b) a decline in the economic importance of forest goods in household income; (c) and a rise in the value of non-timber goods removed from the forest to about $35/ha/year. We did not have time to test hypothesis d.     

Analysis and Preservation of Pleistocene Human and Animal Footprints: An Example from Toluquilla,Valsequillo Basin (Central Mexico)

Human and animal footprints found in the Valsequillo Basin were formed on the upper bedding planes surfaces of a volcanic ash (Xalnene Ash) deposited by a subaqueous volcano along the shores of a Pleistocene lake. The footprints were made on lake shorelines and the exposed lake floor during low stands associated, either with water displacement during the volcanic eruption, or due to climatically-driven fluctuations in the water balance. The Xalnene Ash has been dated to at least 40 K BP and consequently the human footprints provide evidence for much earlier colonization of the Americas than is often accepted. The methodology used to record, analyze and conserve these footprints used three-dimensional laser scanning, with sub-millimeter precision. This data were used to reproduce polymer models of individual footprints using the application of rapid-prototyping technology. This technology has wide significance for the study of ichnofacies in general. The characteristics of the human footprints and some problems associated with the volcanic ash as a molding medium for the clarity of these characteristics are given. These human footprints and their dating resolve the controversy related to the age of the archaeological and associated megafaunal remains that were reported in the Valsequillo Gravels in the 1960s and 1970s.     

Grallator-Dominated Fossil Footprint Assemblages and Associated Enigmatic Footprints from the Chinle Group (Upper Triassic), Gateway Area,Colorado

The upper part of the Chinle Group (Late Triassic) of the Gateway area in western Colorado is extraordinarily rich in fossil footprint assemblages. Dominant track types include small Grallator tracks, generally attributed to Coelophysis-like theropods, which often occur in high densities of 50 to 100 per m². Other abundant ichnotaxa that are attributable to dinosaurs or dinosaur-like archosaurs include Pseudotetrasauropus and Tetrasauropus, attributed to prosauropods and sauropods, respectively. Several Pseudotetrasauropus-like tracks appear to be functionally didactyl and may indicate a new ichnotaxon that represents an animal that shows certain unusual features that are convergent with dromeosaurs and certain birds. Such convergence may reflect inherent growth programs as much as functional adaptations. Non-dinosaurian ichnotaxa include Brachychirotherium (probably of aetosaur affinity) and Rhynchosauroides, attributed to a sphenodontid/lizard-like form. Other ichnotaxa include probable therapsid (dicynodont) tracks labeled Pentasauropus sp., mammaloid (non-therian mammal and/or mammal-like reptile) tracks, and the trails of arthropods. Excellent preservation and high track densities mark the Gateway assemblages in a thin stratigraphic interval in the upper part of the Chinle Group (Rock Point Formation). The track assemblages are similar to those reported from the Chinle Group in other parts of the Colorado Plateau and Rocky Mountain region, extending over most of Colorado, Utah, northern Arizona and northern and eastern New Mexico. Some of the Chinle ichnotaxa (Grallator and Brachychirotherium) are found in the overlying Wingate Formation, indicating that it is also Late Triassic in age, at least in the lower part. However, overall the Chinle and Wingate assemblages are quite different, most notably in the rarity of mammaloid/mammal-like tracks in the Chinle Group.     

Human rights,environment, and development: The dispossession of fishing communities on Lake Malawi

In a growing number of cases throughout Africa, communities' resource bases are being undermined or appropriated by outsiders, a process which seriously threatens the continuation of local cultures and livelihoods. In this article, we use a political ecology framework to examine how the linked processes of economic development, political power, and environmental change are transgressing the rights of fishing communities on the shores of Lake Malawi. In the cases described, these communities, or community members within them, find themselves powerless to prevent the expropriation of the resources over which they previously had either legal or customary control. Thus, it is not the economic processes of dispossession alone which lead to human rights violations but rather dispossession combined with an authoritarian political context.     

New Genus and Species of Chirotheroid Tracks in the Detfurth-Formation (Middle Bunter,Lower Triassic) of Central Germany

Archosaur tracks are described that have been found in 1999 in a single track bed in the Dethfurth-Formation of the Middle Bunter (Lower Triassic) near Wolfhagen (Central Germany). The taxonomic evaluation of these tracks requires the erection of the new genus and species Protochirotherium wolfhagense ichnogen. n. ichosp. n. Apart from this a rearrangement of groups of chirotheroid tracks is proposed due to the digital proportions.     

History of Ichnology: The Correspondence Between the Reverend Henry Duncan and the Reverend William Buckland and the Discovery of the First Vertebrate Footprints

The Reverend Henry Duncan (1774–1846), clergyman, philosopher, writer, politician, archeologist, poet, educator, social reformer, and the founder of savings banks, was indeed a Man for All Seasons. In 1824, while Minister of the Church of Scotland at Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, he was presented with a slab of red sandstone from the Corncockle Muir quarry in Annandale, exhibiting a set of footprints on it. Although Duncan felt from the start that he was dealing with the tracks of an animal, he wrote to the Reverend William Buckland, Reader in Mineralogy and Geology at the University of Oxford, to solicit his opinion on the origin of these curious markings. Buckland was at first skeptical, but after receiving casts of the markings from Duncan, he became convinced that they did in fact represent footprints. Duncan and Buckland maintained a correspondence about the footprints, and on January 7, 1828, Duncan described the Corncockle Muir footprints to the Royal Society of Edinburgh and quoted Buckland's findings. Duncan's paper was not published by the Society until 1831, but it aroused considerable interest—“Footsteps before the Flood”!—and was reported in several newspapers. This was the first scientific report of a fossil track; although a schoolboy, Pliny Moody, had found fossil footprints in Connecticut in 1802, they were not scientifically described until 1836. The Scottish tracks are now considered to be not reptilian but of synapsid origin and the rocks containing them are now known to be of Permian age.     

Taenia asiatica: the Most Neglected Human Taenia and the Possibility of Cysticercosis

Not only Taenia solium and Taenia saginata, but also Taenia asiatica infects humans. The last species is not included in the evaluation of the specificity of the immunodiagnostic techniques for taeniasis/cysticercosis. There is currently no specific immunodiagnostic method for T. asiatica available. Therefore, due to the fact that molecular techniques (the only tool to distinguish the 3 Taenia species) are normally not employed in routine diagnostic methods, the 2 questions concerning T. asiatica (its definite geographic distribution and its ability to cause human cysticercosis), remain open, turning T. asiatica into the most neglected agent of human taeniasis-cysticercosis.     

Hominid fossil sample from Kanjera,Kenya: Description,provenance, and implications of new and earlier discoveries

Anatomically modern hominids were first collected from Kanjera, Kenya, by L.S.B. Leakey in the 1930s. Their apparent association with an archaic fauna was quickly challenged, throwing their age into doubt. Further unpublished hominid fragments were collected in 1974, 1975, 1981, and 1987. We review the context and morphology of the entire hominid sample. A minimum number of five individuals is represented by both cranial and postcranial elements. Several individuals have thickened cranial vaults, a characteristic originally thought to reflect their great antiquity. Vault thickening resulted from diploic expansion and may have been a response to acquired or inherited anemia. The entire hominid sample postdates the Kanjera Formation, deposited from the early into the middle Pleistocene. Most of the sample was derived from the black cotton soil capping the stratigraphic column. The morphology and context of the Kanjera hominids is consistent with human skeletal remains from nearby Holocene sites. Hominid 3 was probably an intrusive burial into an early Pleistocene bed. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Formation and Taphonomy of Human Footprints in Microbial Mats of Present-Day Tidal-flat Environments: Implications for the Study of Fossil Footprints

This study concerns the formation, taphonomy, and preservation of human footprints in microbial mats of present-day tidal-flat environments. Due to differences in water content and nature of the microbial mats and the underlying sediment, a wide range of footprint morphologies was produced by the same trackmaker. Most true tracks are subjected to modification due to taphonomic processes, leading to modified true tracks. In addition to formation of biolaminites, microbial mats play a major role in the preservation of footprints on tidal flats. A footprint may be consolidated by desiccation or lithification of the mat, or by ongoing growth of the mat. The latter process may lead to the formation of overtracks. Among consolidated or (partially) lithified footprints found on present-day tidal flats, poorly defined true tracks, modified true tracks, and overtracks were most frequently encountered while unmodified and well-defined true tracks are rather rare. We suggest that modified true tracks and overtracks make up an important percentage of fossil footprints and that they may be as common as undertracks. However, making unambiguous distinctions between poorly defined true tracks, modified true tracks, undertracks, and overtracks in the fossil record will remain a difficult task, which necessitates systematic excavation of footprints combined with careful analysis of the encasing sediment.     

Mercury Pollution from a Chloralkali Source in a Tropical Lake and Its Biomagnification in Aquatic Biota: Link between Chemical Pollution,Biomarkers, and Human Health Concern

Mercury is a highly toxic heavy metal that can cause adverse ecological and toxicological impacts through the mechanism of biomagnification. Hg accumulation in aquatic biota may thus also pose a serious threat to humans and other fish-eating animals. The present work observed the transfer of Hg from abiotic (water and sediments) to biotic (algae, aquatic macrophytes, and fish) components, belonging to different trophic levels in a tropical lake in India. Hg was analyzed in water, sediments, plants, and fish collected from different sampling points, receiving the discharge of chloralkali effluent. Hg concentrations increased significantly from lake water and sediments to algae and aquatic macrophytes. Statistical analysis (Pearson correlation) revealed a significant positive correlation between Hg in water and plants (r = 0.88–0.93; p < .01 and p < .05) as well as for Hg in sediment and plants (r = 0.50–0.83; p < .01 and p < .05). However, the increase in Hg concentration in fish was not significantly correlated with lake ambient water (r = 0.31–0.36), sediments (r = 0.29–0.33), and aquatic plants (r = 0.31–0.36). Results obtained encourage the use of naturally occurring wetland plants in designed systems like constructed wetlands to ameliorate Hg pollution in lakes, rivers, and ponds resulting from the discharge of industrial effluents, especially chloralkali effluent, hence reducing the human health risks associated with Hg.     

A Probable Diatryma Track from the Eocene of Washington: An Intriguing Case of Controversy and Skepticism

A large tridactyl track from the Franklin Series of the Eocene Puget Group has been named Ornithoformipes controversus ichnogen et ichnosp. nov. and is attributed to a large ground-dwelling Diatryma or a Diatryma-like bird. The isolated footprint clearly shows that the trackmaker had broad semi-circular unguals and feet that show several correspondences with the foot morphology inferred for Diatryma and related forms. The age of the footprint is estimated at about 45 million years, which is about 5 million years younger than known Diatryma body fossils. The sedimentary geology context of the track is consistent with an interpretation of the trackmaker as a large herbivore that lived in well-vegetated areas.     

Description of a commercially important pelagic species of the genus Diplotaxodon (Pisces: Cichlidae) from Lake Malawi, Africa

A new species of pelagic haplochromine cichlid of the genus Diplotaxodon is described from Lake Malawi, Africa. The species, which attains a size of 14cm s. L., feeds mainly on zooplankton, shows no sexual dimorphism in size or body proportions, breeds throughout the year and lives at depths of 20 to at least 120 m. Approximately 600 tonnes of the species were caught by trawlers in 1990–1991, in the south–eastern arm of the lake alone. It appears that this species is a major component of the pelagic community, and occupies an ecological role similar to that of the clupeid Limnothrissa miodon in Lake Tanganyika.     

重庆晚侏罗世两处兽脚类足迹组合与四川盆地侏罗纪地层(英文)

重庆市已报道了4处侏罗纪的恐龙足迹点,包括下侏罗统珍珠冲组的大足化石点,该地点发现了中国迄今最古老的蜥脚类行迹;另外两处化石点(南岸和金鸡)的层位曾被视为中或上侏罗统,这里首次将其确认为上侏罗统上沙溪庙组;第4处化石点(成渝), 本文全部作者目前都未曾观察,这里不做描述。南岸化石点是南岸重庆足迹(Chongqingpus nananensis)模式标本的所在地,位于重庆市中心,曾发现过大量兽脚类足迹,如今已消逝在城市化进程中。幸运的是,这批标本被保存于重庆自然博物馆,本文作者曾前后两次对其进行研究,并得出文中的结论。南岸重庆足迹为中型足迹(平均长约29 cm), 最可能被卡岩塔足迹(Kayentapus)所囊括,这批标本中有一些保存着边界不清的拇趾迹。该化石点的其他足迹被归于似异样龙足迹(cf. Anomoepus)。其他较小的、来自重庆市周边中侏罗统中部的足迹此前已被归于跷脚龙足迹(Grallator)。金鸡化石点保存了一条孤立的兽脚类行迹,因其粗壮的特征而被暂时归于似窄足龙足迹(cf. Therangospodus)。金鸡点的行迹也保存了非连续出现的拇趾迹。虽然重庆市和四川盆地及其周边更广泛地区之侏罗纪地层发现的兽脚类足迹日渐增多,但要明确其确切地质年龄及有效的足迹分类依然需要进一步工作。这是因为侏罗纪的恐龙足迹尽管丰富,但显示出连续变化的形态学特征,而保存状况的变化更使其难以在时间与空间上做出定义与鉴别。     

Two new dinosaur tracksites from the Lower Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation of Sichuan Basin,China: specific preservation and ichnotaxonomy

Two new dinosaur tracksites are reported from the Lower Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation in the Sichuan Basin, Qijiang District of Chongqing. These are the Gaoqing-Yongsheng and the Huibu tracksites, which represent the 13th and 14th reports from this formation. The Gaoqing-Yongsheng tracksite reveals the trackway of a large biped (ornithopod) in association with isolated sauropod tracks and large indeterminate undertracks with radial cracks. These features are preserved as natural casts with pebble infillings in a coarse, cross bedded and very thick bedded sandstone sequence. The Huibu tracksite reveals isolated theropod tracks and ornithopod tracks, the latter having a quadripartite, Caririchnium-like morphology, preserved in a thin bedded sandstone sequence with intercalated mudstone.     

Description of Sclerorhabditis miniata n. sp. and First Description of Male of Diploscapter coronatus Cobb, 1913 (Nematoda: Rhabditidae)

A population of Sclerorhabditis miniata n. sp. is described and illustrated from Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir State, India. The new species is characterized by small body size, with an annulated cuticle, offset labial region, crown shaped, strongly sclerotized lips, thin lateral lips, membranous, stegostom without glottoid apparatus, cheilostom rod shaped, sclerotized, spicules free, strong and thick, gubernaculum simple, bent proximally, bursa open, peloderan with seven pairs of bursal papillae in 1+1/1+1+2+1 pattern. The males of Diploscapter coronatus are described for the first time. They are usually smaller than the females and have labial region similar to females. Spicules separate, with a small dorsal velum, gubernaculum simple, almost straight, bursa open, pseudopeloderan with seven pairs of bursal papillae in 1+1/1+2+1+1 pattern.     

First record of harpacticoid copepods from Lake Tahoe,United States: two new species of Attheyella (Harpacticoida,Canthocamptidae)

Benthic harpacticoids were collected for the first time at Lake Tahoe, California-Nevada, United States. Two species were identified as members of the genus Attheyella Brady, 1880. The genus Attheyella comprises about 150 species within six subgenera, but only twelve species have previously been reported from North American freshwater habitats. The two new species of Attheyella described here have a 3-segmented endopod on P1 and 2-segmented P2–P4 endopods, the distal segment of exopod of P2–P4 has three outer spines, and the P5 has five setae on the exopod and six setae on the baseoendopod. Attheyella (Attheyella) tahoensis sp. n. most closely resembles Attheyella (Attheyella) idahoensis (Marsh, 1903) from Idaho, Montana, and Alaska (United States) and Attheyella (Attheyella) namkungi Kim, Soh & Lee, 2005 from Gosu Cave in South Korea. They differ mainly by the number of setae on the distal endopodal segment of P2–P4. In addition, intraspecific variation has been observed on the caudal rami. Attheyella (Neomrazekiella) tessiae sp. n. is characterized by the extension of P5 baseoendopod, 2-segmented endopod of female P2–P3, and naked third seta of male P5 exopod. The two new species are likely endemic to Lake Tahoe, an isolated alpine lake within the Great Basin watershed in the western United States.