Evidence for palaeo-wildfires occurs widespread in continental Cretaceous deposits all over the world and large parts of the Cretaceous are considered as high-fire periods of the Earth’s history. However, published evidence for such Cretaceous wildfires is unevenly distributed, not only from a stratigraphical but also palaeogeographical point of view. Published evidence for earliest Cretaceous (Berriasian – Barremian) wildfires is much rarer than for the later parts of the Cretaceous (Aptian – Maastrichtian) and the majority of publications on this subject deal with evidence from the northern hemisphere, whereas evidence from the southern hemisphere (=former parts of the supercontinent Gondwana) has so far only rarely been published. Here we present evidence, in form of macroscopic charcoal fragments, for the occurrence of wildfire events during deposition of the Valanginian – Hauterivian as well as Barremian? strata of the Rajmahal Formation in the Raniganj Coalfield, West Bengal, India. These occurrences represent so far the oldest Cretaceous records for palaeo-wildfires on the Indian part of the former super-continent Gondwana, adding further proof that wildfires were globally distributed during this period.

A new small-bodied theropod dinosaur, Migmanychion laiyang gen. et sp. nov., is erected based on appendicular skeletal material from the Lower Cretaceous of the Pigeon Hill locality, Inner Mongolia, China. This theropod shows a peculiar combination of features in the hand, in part shared with therizinosauroids, oviraptorosaurs and with the enigmatic Fukuivenator paradoxus from Japan.. Phylogenetic analysis supports the closest affinity of Migmanychion with Fukuivenator, yet alternative placements among Oviraptorosauria or among the non-avialan paravians result suboptimal descriptions of the character distribution. Although this new taxon is confidently referred to Maniraptora, this result is based uniquely on derived features of the hand: only additional material could substantiate its precise placement among the bird-like theropods. Fragmentary appendicular material from the same locality cannot be unambiguously referred to Migmanychion. One specimen, including associated partial pelvis and hindlimbs, is tentatively referred to a paravian maniraptoran.