Global Fossil Record Research Articles

The rise and fall of the Iberian cobras (Elapidae, Naja) in the context of their European and global fossil record

AbstractVery few remains of elapid snakes are known from the Iberian Peninsula, but these include a probable endemic extinct species of cobra, Naja iberica from the Late Miocene. We here describe isolated cobra vertebrae from several Middle–Late Miocene localities in the Vallès‐Penedès Basin (Catalonia, Spain). All of these fossils are herein referred to an indeterminate species of the genus Naja. These remains are the first conclusive evidence that cobras were present in Iberia before the Messinian Salinity Crisis, and that they persisted there throughout the Miocene (and ultimately until the Pliocene). Recently, a phylogeny of extinct Naja based on cranial and vertebral morphology recognized N. iberica as a distinct lineage separate from the Central European one, represented mainly by Naja romani. However, due to taxonomic uncertainties, it is still unclear whether Iberian cobras were all part of a single lineage or whether several Naja lineages inhabited the Iberian Peninsula. They went extinct in Iberia before the end of the Pliocene. In the Vallès‐Penedès Basin, cobras were living in a mosaic environment, surviving through different phases characterized by different environmental features.

Dawn of diverse shelled and carbonaceous animal microfossils at ~ 571 Ma

The Ediacaran-Cambrian transition documents a critical stage in the diversification of animals. The global fossil record documents the appearance of cloudinomorphs and other shelled tubular organisms followed by non-biomineralized small carbonaceous fossils and by the highly diversified small shelly fossils between ~ 550 and 530 Ma. Here, we report diverse microfossils in thin sections and hand samples from the Ediacaran Bocaina Formation, Brazil, separated into five descriptive categories: elongate solid structures (ES); elongate filled structures (EF); two types of equidimensional structures (EQ 1 and 2) and elongate hollow structures with coiled ends (CE). These specimens, interpreted as diversified candidate metazoans, predate the latest Ediacaran biomineralized index macrofossils of the Cloudina-Corumbella-Namacalathus biozone in the overlying Tamengo Formation. Our new carbonate U–Pb ages for the Bocaina Formation, position this novel fossil record at 571 ± 9 Ma (weighted mean age). Thus, our data point to diversification of metazoans, including biomineralized specimens reminiscent of sections of cloudinids, protoconodonts, anabaritids, and hyolithids, in addition to organo-phosphatic surficial coverings of animals, demonstrably earlier than the record of the earliest known skeletonized metazoan fossils.

Oldest southern sauropterygian reveals early marine reptile globalization

Sauropterygians were the stratigraphically longest-ranging clade of Mesozoic marine reptiles with a global fossil record spanning ∼180 million years1. However, their early evolution has only been known from what is now the Northern Hemisphere, extending across the northern and trans-equatorial western margins of the Tethys paleo-ocean1 after the late-Early Triassic (late Olenekian, ∼248.8 million years [Ma] ago2), and via possible trans-Arctic migration1 to the Eastern Panthalassa super-ocean prior to the earliest Middle Triassic (Olenekian-earliest Anisian3,4, ∼247 Ma). Here, we describe the geologically oldest sea-going reptile from the Southern Hemisphere - a nothosaur (basal sauropterygian5) from the Middle Triassic (Anisian, after ∼246 Ma6) of New Zealand. Time-scaled ancestral range estimations thus reveal an unexpected circum-Gondwanan high-paleolatitude (>60° S7) dispersal from a northern Tethyan origination center. This coincides with the adaptive diversification of sauropterygians after the end-Permian mass extinction8 and suggests that rapid globalization accompanied their initial radiation in the earliest Mesozoic.

Charting the course of pinniped evolution: insights from molecular phylogeny and fossil record integration.

Pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, walruses, and their fossil relatives) are one of the most successful mammalian clades to live in the oceans. Despite a well-resolved molecular phylogeny and a global fossil record, a complete understanding of their macroevolutionary dynamics remains hampered by a lack of formal analyses that combine these 2 rich sources of information. We used a meta-analytic approach to infer the most densely sampled pinniped phylogeny to date (36 recent and 93 fossil taxa) and used phylogenetic paleobiological methods to study their diversification dynamics and biogeographic history. Pinnipeds mostly diversified at constant rates. Walruses, however, experienced rapid turnover in which extinction rates ultimately exceeded speciation rates from 12 to 6 Ma, possibly due to changing sea levels and/or competition with otariids (eared seals). Historical biogeographic analyses, including fossil data, allowed us to confidently identify the North Pacific and the North Atlantic (plus or minus Paratethys) as the ancestral ranges of Otarioidea (eared seals + walrus) and crown phocids (earless seals), respectively. Yet, despite the novel addition of stem pan-pinniped taxa, the region of origin for Pan-Pinnipedia remained ambiguous. These results suggest further avenues of study in pinnipeds and provide a framework for investigating other groups with substantial extinct and extant diversity.

Quantifying the effects of exceptional fossil preservation on the global availability of phylogenetic data in deep time.

Fossil deposits with exceptional preservation ("lagerstätten") provide important details not typically preserved in the fossil record, such that they hold an outsized influence on our understanding of biodiversity and evolution. In particular, the potential bias imparted by this so-called "lagerstätten effect" remains a critical, but underexplored aspect of reconstructing evolutionary relationships. Here, we quantify the amount of phylogenetic information available in the global fossil records of 1,327 species of non-avian theropod dinosaurs, Mesozoic birds, and fossil squamates (e.g., lizards, snakes, mosasaurs), and then compare the influence of lagerstätten deposits on phylogenetic information content and taxon selection in phylogenetic analyses to other fossil-bearing deposits. We find that groups that preserve a high amount of phylogenetic information in their global fossil record (e.g., non-avian theropods) are less vulnerable to a "lagerstätten effect" that leads to disproportionate representation of fossil taxa from one geologic unit in an evolutionary tree. Additionally, for each taxonomic group, we find comparable amounts of phylogenetic information in lagerstätten deposits, even though corresponding morphological character datasets vary greatly. Finally, we unexpectedly find that ancient sand dune deposits of the Late Cretaceous Gobi Desert of Mongolia and China exert an anomalously large influence on the phylogenetic information available in the squamate fossil record, suggesting a "lagerstätten effect" can be present in units not traditionally considered lagerstätten. These results offer a phylogenetics-based lens through which to examine the effects of exceptional fossil preservation on biological patterns through time and space, and invites further quantification of evolutionary information in the rock record.

New records of Theropoda from a Late Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) locality in the Magallanes-Austral Basin, Patagonia, and insights into end Cretaceous theropod diversity

The end Cretaceous mass extinction was marked by a dramatic change in biodiversity, and the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs. To understand the diversity of dinosaur clades prior to this event, as well as recovery by avian dinosaurs (birds), we need a better understanding of the global fossil record. However, the fossil record from southern localities, particularly southernmost (>60°S) South America, has only recently begun to be described. Discoveries from Patagonia are important to accurately assess global trends in dinosaur diversity, particularly during the latest Cretaceous before the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) mass extinction event. Here we describe new theropod dinosaur specimens, representing both associated material and isolated elements, from Upper Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) deposits of the Río de las Chinas Valley, Magallanes-Austral Basin, Chile. These discoveries include the southern-most known occurrences of several theropod clades outside of Antarctica, including megaraptorids, unenlagiines, enantiornithines and ornithurines. Notably, these remains provide much needed time-constrained records of smaller theropods, including birds, which are less often recovered from Upper Cretaceous deposits. While fragmentary, these fossils are the first records of theropods from Chilean Patagonia, and provide insight into the distribution of avian and non-avian theropods in southern high latitude ecosystems prior to the K/Pg mass extinction event. Sampling from this region is still sparse, and more fossils from age-controlled sections are needed to accurately assess global extinction dynamics through the end Cretaceous.

The Shishugou Fauna of the Middle‐Late Jurassic Transition Period in the Junggar Basin of Western China

AbstractThe Middle–Late Jurassic transition period is a critical period for the evolution of terrestrial vertebrates, but the global fossil record from this time is relatively poor. The Shishugou Fauna of this period has recently produced significant fossil remains of dinosaurs and other vertebrate groups, some representing the earliest known members of several dinosaurian groups and other vertebrate groups and some representing the best‐known specimens of their group. These discoveries are significant for our understanding of the origin and evolution of several vertebrate lineages. Radiometric dating indicates that the fauna is aged approximately 159–164 Ma. Comparisons with other similarly‐aged terrestrial faunas such as Shaximiao and Yanliao show both taxonomic similarities and differences between these faunas and indicate that the Junggar deposits might have preserved the most complete vertebrate fossil record for a Middle–Late Jurassic Laurasian terrestrial fauna.

Possible Pleistocene Pinniped Ichnofossils on South Africa's Cape South Coast

Helm, C.W.; Carr, A.S.; Cawthra, H.C.; De Vynck, J.C.; Dixon, M.; Stear, W.; Stuart, C.; Stuart, M., and Venter, J.A., 2022. Possible Pleistocene pinniped ichnofossils on South Africa's Cape south coast. Journal of Coastal Research, 38(4), 735–749. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Exposed surfaces of cemented foreshore deposits and aeolianites on the Cape south coast of South Africa have been demonstrated to contain numerous Pleistocene vertebrate tracksites. Two ichnosites have recently been identified that appear to demonstrate traces made by seals. These would be the first seal trace fossils thus far described in the global fossil record. The sites are situated 560 m apart in the Goukamma Nature Reserve. One site exhibits apparent flipper traces and a furrow, and the other site exhibits impressions consistent with moulds of juvenile seals. In conjunction with new luminescence dating of the associated sediments, these findings suggest a seal presence on Cape south coast beaches ∼75,000 years ago in the mild glacial period of Marine Isotope Stage 5a.

Turtles all the way down: Neogene pig‐nosed turtle fossil from southern Australia reveals cryptic freshwater turtle invasions and extinctions

AbstractThe extant pig‐nosed turtle (Carettochelys insculpta), persisting in far northern Australia and southern New Guinea, is the last surviving member of Carettochelyidae and the only non‐Gondwanan freshwater turtle lineage in Australia. Despite having a global fossil record dating to the Cretaceous, the absence of carettochelyid fossils from Australia has implied a relatively recent colonization of this landmass. Here we report an upper Miocene to lower Pliocene carettochelyid fossil from Beaumaris, Victoria, in south‐eastern Australia. This record is the most southerly occurrence of the clade Carettochelyidae. The presence of carettochelyids in southern Australia, and a discontinuous record of trionychids (soft‐shell turtles) in the Cenozoic of Queensland, suggests at least two colonizations of Australia by Trionychia, pre‐dating the extant pig‐nosed turtle. This cryptic southern history of tropical soft‐shell and pig‐nosed turtles ended before the recent aridification of Australia, leaving the Gondwanan side‐necked turtles as the dominant turtle group in Australian freshwater ecosystems. Therefore, this singular fossil reveals a previously unknown shift in the diversity and evolutionary history of freshwater turtles in Australia.

Climate and geological change as drivers of Mauritiinae palm biogeography

ABSTRACTAimForest composition and distribution are determined by a myriad of factors, including climate. As models of tropical rain forest, palms are often used as indicator taxa, particularly the Mauritiinae. We question, what characterizes the Mauritiinae pollen in the global fossil record? And when did the Mauritiinae become endemic to South America?LocationGlobal tropics.TaxonMauritiinae palms (Arecaceae: Lepidocaryeae).MethodsPollen trait data from extinct and extant Mauritiinae pollen were generated from light‐, scanning‐, and transmission electron microscopy. Statistical morphometric analysis was used to define species and their relationships to other Mauritiinae. We also compiled a comprehensive pollen database for extinct and extant Mauritiinae and mapped their global geographical distribution from Late Cretaceous to present, using GBIF and fossil data.ResultsOur morphometric analysis identified 18 species (11 extinct and seven extant), all exhibiting exine indentations, a synapomorphy of the subtribe. The fossil taxa and early divergent extant Lepidocaryum are all monosulcate, whereas the extant Mauritia and Mauritiella species are all monoulcerate. Paleobiogeographical maps of fossil Mauritiinae pollen occurrences suggest the taxon originated in equatorial Africa during the Cretaceous, and expanded their range to South America, and to India in the Paleocene. Range retraction started in the early Eocene with extirpation from India, and reduction in diversity in Africa culminating at the Eocene–Oligocene Transition (EOT). In contrast, in South America, the distribution is maintained, and since the Neogene Mauritiinae palms are mostly restricted to swampy, lowland habitats.Main conclusionsMorphometric analysis shows that since their origin Mauritiinae pollen are relatively species poor, and Mauritiidites resembles Lepidocaryum. We also conclude that the biogeographical history of the Mauriitinae and, by extension, tropical forests was strongly affected by global climatic cooling events. In particular, the climate change at the EOT was a fundamental determinant of current tropical forest distribution.

Seed traits linked to differential survival of plants during the Cretaceous/Paleogene impact winter

In past investigations the pattern of differential survival of plants across the K/Pg boundary has been viewed as incompatible with severe asteroid impact winter scenarios (i.e., an impact winter lasting more than a few months), particularly the enigmatic survival of coryphoid palms and Pandanus (screw pine). Stateof- the-art climate models based on soot, sulfate and nano-sized dust aerosols predict a global impact winter that drastically reduced precipitation and resulted in a transient period of total darkness and permafrost conditions. This suggests that the plants most likely to have been affected by the global mass-extinction event were tropical phanerophytes that produce recalcitrant seeds, which by definition are desiccation-intolerant, survive less than a year, and cannot survive freezing. However, this hypothesis has never been tested. In this study I sampled over 100 plant species from the global fossil record that have a high probability of having produced either recalcitrant seeds/disseminules (n1 = 58) or orthodox seeds (n2 = 59), based on their phylogenetic relationships with extant taxa that either are monomorphic for these traits or specifically exhibit a genetic marker for abscisic acid inhibition associated with seed dormancy and recalcitrance. A one-tailed z-test for the difference between two proportions revealed that plant taxa with a high probability of having produced recalcitrant seeds had significantly lower survivorship than plant taxa with a high probability of having produced orthodox seeds (p < 0.0001). Based on these data, it can be concluded that plants which formed a frost-tolerant seed bank during the latest Maastrichtian were significantly more likely to survive the K/Pg impact winter than plants which did not (including palms). These data clearly indicate that the K/Pg impact winter probably lasted longer than a year and that it selected for seed-based traits that effectively sorted correlated functional traits of mature plants (i.e., leaf physiognomic features). This novel hypothesis stands as an alternative to J.A. Wolfe’s classic hypothesis that a mild K/Pg impact winter selected for fast-growing angiosperms with deciduous leaves and did not affect the plant communities of the Southern Hemisphere. Potential mechanisms for the rare survival of tropical, recalcitrant-seeded plants are discussed.

Lower Cretaceous pterosaurs from Colombia

The global fossil record of lowermost Cretaceous pterosaurs is meagre, and much of the material is fragmentary. Here we report three occurrences of pterosaurs from the Rosablanca Formation (Valanginian), the first records of this extinct group of flying reptiles from Colombia. Specimens from Zapatoca, Santander Department, consist of fragments of the left mandible and the proximal portion of a wing phalange. A third specimen, from Cundinamarca Department, is the proximal termination of a radius. Although fragmentary, these remains are clearly pterosaurian, on account of their remarkably thin bone walls and provide evidence of pterodactyloids, including a large non-pteranodontian ornithocheiroid, in the northernmost part of South America in the lowermost Cretaceous.

Two-step extinction of Late Cretaceous marine vertebrates in northern Gulf of Mexico prolonged biodiversity loss prior to the Chicxulub impact

Recent studies on mass extinctions are often based on the global fossil record, but data from selected paleogeographic regions under a relatively constant paleoenvironmental setting can also provide important information. Eighty-nine marine vertebrate species, including cartilaginous and bony fish and marine reptiles, from northern Gulf of Mexico – located about 500 km from the Chicxulub crater – offer a unique opportunity to determine an extinction process during the last 20 million years of the Late Cretaceous. Our diversity data show two separate extinction events: (i) the ‘Middle Campanian Crisis’ (about 77 Mya) and (ii) the end-Maastrichtian (66 Mya) events. Whether this stepwise pattern of extinctions occurred locally or globally cannot be determined at present due to the lack of a dataset of the marine vertebrate record for reliable comparison. However, this stepwise pattern including the Middle Campanian and end-Maastrichtian events for, at least, a 13 million-year interval indicates long-term global marine environmental changes (e.g., regression, ocean water chemistry change). Because most Cretaceous marine vertebrates already disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico prior to the latest Maastrichtian, the Chicxulub Impact may not be considered as the most devastating extinction event for the community.

Chondrichthyans from the Lower Clayton Limestone Unit of the Midway Group (Paleocene) near Malvern, Arkansas, USA, with comments on the K/Pg boundary

The Lower Clayton Limestone Unit (LCLU) of the Midway Group (Paleocene) near Malvern, Arkansas, USA contains an assemblage of chondrichthyans recently exposed by excavation for highway stabilization. Chondrichthyan teeth in this assemblage belong to at least 12 taxa including: Ginglymostoma subafricanum, Carcharias cf. whitei, Carcharias sp., Odontaspis winkleri, Palaeohypotodus rutori, Palaeogaleus vincenti, Dasyatis cf. hexagonalis, Dasyatis sp., Hypolophites sp., Myliobatis sp., Rhinoptera sp., and an indeterminate chimaerid. Locally, these chondrichthyans occur within a stratigraphic section directly above the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary that also contains chondrichthyans. This occurrence is uncommon in the global fossil record and provides an opportunity to (1) assess chondrichthyan diversity across the K/Pg boundary in the Malvern region and Gulf Coastal Plain of southwestern Arkansas and (2) evaluate the timing of marginal to shallow marine chondrichthyan faunal turnover and extinction at a proximal location ≈ 1500 km from the Chicxulub, Mexico, K/Pg impact site. Observed patterns within this K/Pg stratigraphic section indicate that changes in chondrichthyan assemblages are primarily the result of sea-level cyclicity and habitat losses that occurred across several million years.

Hierarchical controls on extinction selectivity across the diplobathrid crinoid phylogeny

AbstractIdentifying correlates of extinction risk is important for understanding the underlying mechanisms driving differential rates of extinction and variability in the temporal durations of taxa. Increasingly, it is recognized that the effects of multiple, potentially interacting variables and phylogenetic relationships should be incorporated when studying extinction selectivity to account for covariation of traits and shared evolutionary history. Here, I explore a variety of biological and ecological controls on genus longevity in the global fossil record of diplobathrid crinoids by analyzing the combined effects of species richness, habitat preference, body size, filtration fan density, and food size selectivity. I employ a suite of taxic and phylogenetic approaches to (1) quantitatively compare and rank the relative effects of multiple factors on taxonomic longevity and (2) determine how phylogenetic comparative approaches alter interpretations of extinction selectivity.I find controls on diplobathrid genus duration are hierarchically structured, where species richness is the primary predictor of duration, habitat is the secondary predictor, and combinations of ecological and biological traits are tertiary controls. Ecology plays an important but complex role in the generation of crinoid macroevolutionary patterns. Notably, tolerance of environmental heterogeneity promotes increased genus duration across diplobathrid crinoids, and the effects of traits related to feeding ecology vary depending on habitat lithology. Finally, I find accounting for phylogeny does not consistently decrease the significance of correlations between traits and genus duration, as is commonly expected. Instead, the strength of relationships between traits and duration may increase, decrease, or remain statistically similar, and both the magnitude and direction of these shifts are generally unpredictable. However, traits with strong correlations and/or moderately large effect sizes (Cohen'sf2> 0.15) under taxic approaches tend to remain qualitatively unchanged under phylogenetic approaches.

Concept drift over geological times: predictive modeling baselines for analyzing the mammalian fossil record

Fossils are the remains organisms from earlier geological periods preserved in sedimentary rock. The global fossil record documents and characterizes the evidence about organisms that existed at different times and places during the Earth’s history. One of the major directions in computational analysis of such data is to reconstruct environmental conditions and track climate changes over millions of years. Distribution of fossil animals in space and time make informative features for such modeling, yet concept drift presents one of the main computational challenges. As species continuously go extinct and new species originate, animal communities today are different from the communities of the past, and the communities at different times in the past are different from each other. The fossil record is continuously increasing as new fossils and localities are being discovered, but it is not possible to observe or measure their environmental contexts directly, because the time is gone. Labeled data linking organisms to climate is available only for the present day, where climatic conditions can be measured. The approach is to train models on the present day and use them to predict climatic conditions over the past. But since species representation is continuously changing, transfer learning approaches are needed to make models applicable and climate estimates to be comparable across geological times. Here we discuss predictive modeling settings for such paleoclimate reconstruction from the fossil record. We compare and experimentally analyze three baseline approaches for predictive paleoclimate reconstruction: (1) averaging over habitats of species, (2) using presence-absence of species as features, and (3) using functional characteristics of species communities as features. Our experiments on the present day African data and a case study on the fossil data from the Turkana Basin over the last 7 million of years suggest that presence-absence approaches are the most accurate over short time horizons, while species community approaches, also known as ecometrics, are the most informative over longer time horizons when, due to ongoing evolution, taxonomic relations between the present day and fossil species become more and more uncertain.

The Smallest Diplodocid Skull Reveals Cranial Ontogeny and Growth-Related Dietary Changes in the Largest Dinosaurs

Sauropod dinosaurs were the largest terrestrial vertebrates; yet despite a robust global fossil record, the paucity of cranial remains complicates attempts to understand their paleobiology. An assemblage of small diplodocid sauropods from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Montana, USA, has produced the smallest diplodocid skull yet discovered. The ~24 cm long skull is referred to cf. Diplodocus based on the presence of several cranial and vertebral characters. This specimen enhances known features of early diplodocid ontogeny including a short snout with narrow-crowned teeth limited to the anterior portion of the jaws and more spatulate teeth posteriorly. The combination of size plus basal and derived character expression seen here further emphasizes caution when naming new taxa displaying the same, as these may be indicative of immaturity. This young diplodocid reveals that cranial modifications occurred throughout growth, providing evidence for ontogenetic dietary partitioning and recapitulation of ancestral morphologies.

Deep time diversity of metatherian mammals: implications for evolutionary history and fossil-record quality

AbstractDespite a global fossil record, Metatheria are now largely restricted to Australasia and South America. Most metatherian paleodiversity studies to date are limited to particular subclades, time intervals, and/or regions, and few consider uneven sampling. Here, we present a comprehensive new data set on metatherian fossil occurrences (Barremian to end Pliocene). These data are analyzed using standard rarefaction and shareholder quorum subsampling (including a new protocol for handling Lagerstätte-like localities).Global metatherian diversity was lowest during the Cretaceous, and increased sharply in the Paleocene, when the South American record begins. Global and South American diversity rose in the early Eocene then fell in the late Eocene, in contrast to the North American pattern. In the Oligocene, diversity declined in the Americas, but this was more than offset by Oligocene radiations in Australia. Diversity continued to decrease in Laurasia, with final representatives in North America (excluding the later entry ofDidelphis virginiana) and Europe in the early Miocene, and Asia in the middle Miocene. Global metatherian diversity appears to have peaked in the early Miocene, especially in Australia. Following a trough in the late Miocene, the Pliocene saw another increase in global diversity. By this time, metatherian biogeographic distribution had essentially contracted to that of today.Comparison of the raw and sampling-corrected diversity estimates, coupled with evaluation of “coverage” and number of prolific sites, demonstrates that the metatherian fossil record is spatially and temporally extremely patchy. Therefore, assessments of macroevolutionary patterns based on the raw fossil record (as in most previous studies) are inadvisable.

On formation‐based sampling proxies and why they should not be used to correct the fossil record

AbstractThe fossil record is a unique resource on the history of life, but it is well known to be incomplete. In a series of high‐profile papers, a residual modelling technique has been applied to correct the raw palaeodiversity signal for this bias and incompleteness, and the claim is made that the processed time series are more accurate than the raw data. We apply empirical and simulation approaches to test for correlation and directionality of any relationships between rock and fossil data. The empirical data comprise samples of the global fossil record through the Phanerozoic, and we use simulations to assess whether randomly sampled subsets of modelled data can be improved by application of the residual modelling technique. Our results show that using formation counts as a sampling proxy to correct the fossil record via residual modelling is ill founded. The supposedly independent model of sampling is information‐redundant with respect to the raw palaeodiversity data it seeks to correct, and so the outputs are generally likely to be further from the truth than the raw data. We recommend that students of palaeodiversity cease to use residual modelling estimates based on formation counts, and suggest that results from a substantial number of papers published in the past ten years require re‐evaluation.

The first record of dicosmoecinae from the Cenozoic of the Russian Far East with a brief global overview of fossil Limnephilidae (Insecta: Trichoptera)

A new genus and species, Prodicos rasnitsyni gen. et sp. nov. (Trichoptera, Limnephilidae), from the Upper Eocene–Lower Oligocene of Russia is described. The global fossil record of adult Limnephilidae is reviewed.