New fossils, new ideas: selected contributions of vertebrate paleontology to scientific knowledge

The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (JVP) was founded in 1980 by Dr. Jiri Zidek, with financial support from the University of Oklahoma Presidential Associates Fund, and its first volume was launched in 1981. Since 1984 it has been published by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in partnership with the Taylor & Francis Group, and the journal has been growing along with the growth of vertebrate paleontology worldwide. Accordingly, from a modest start of 422 published pages in 4 issues in volume 1, volume 29 in 2009 reached a total of 1,354 published pages. This led to a reorganization of JVP volumes in 6 issues in 2010, coincident with the all-time record of 2,168 published pages in volume 30.

Additionally, since 1991 JVP has included special publications in its Memoir Series, which has been published continuously since 2014 and includes several key major works in Vertebrate Paleontology. Among the early memoirs is the extensive anatomical and systematic study of amiid fishes by Lance Grande and William Bemis published in 1998 with 696 printed pages, including high quality illustrations and very detailed descriptions which became a reference masterpiece for paleontology and ichthyology. Later memoirs have described spectacular and often bizarre fossils alongside foundational systematic studies of mammals, dinosaurs, and other groups.

Over the years, JVP has underpinned advances in the science of Vertebrate Paleontology, categorically supporting specimen-based research from pure descriptions to detailed analytical and methodological work, including all aspects of research related to the field. A survey of zoological literature published in 2017 arrived at the alarming conclusion that “most zoological research is irreplicable'‘ because it lacks information about the material, identification methods, or taxon concepts upon which the studies are based (Monckton et al., 2020). Contrary to this dismaying trend, JVP has a long and steady tradition of ensuring the high-quality standards of the research it publishes. JVP mandates that all specimens used in diagnostic descriptions, illustrations, or in taxonomic discussions must be properly curated and reposited in a recognized institution, and all raw data necessary for validating anatomical descriptions must be included as supplementary files or uploaded to a freely publicly accessible and appropriate data repository.

In addition to publishing these and other important studies, JVP has seen several other changes over the past two years. In line with JVP’s role as a benchmark source of taxonomic information about fossil vertebrates, and in order to counter the continued under-valuing of alpha taxonomy in science, we have recently developed a new article type alongside our regular articles, focused particularly on relatively minor adjustments to alpha taxonomy called Taxonomic Notes. We have also developed three other article types to reflect the changing face of vertebrate paleontology: Dataset Reports serve to describe paleontological information in the era of big data, Best Practices serve to outline detailed and/or novel methodologies, and Rapid Communications serve to make JVP competitive in the modern, fast-paced world of publishing. Our highly committed editorial board, all composed of members of our community, guarantees that the research published in JVP is reproducible while also ensuring that the ethical standards outlined by Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (https://vertpaleo.org/code-of-conduct/) are met.

To meet modern standards, JVP employs double-blind peer review, incorporates data availability and author contribution statements, provides manuscript templates and an updated and streamlined guide for authors, and offers the valuable assistance of a specialized editor who vets and reproduces every phylogenetic analysis before publication.

In view of the constant and growing threat to humanity's paleontological treasures due to natural disasters, which are becoming more frequent as a result of the climate crisis, JVP plays a key role in safeguarding knowledge about ancient vertebrate life. Committed to this mission, the journal is constantly evolving and now incorporates a new series of articles consisting of one article collection per volume. Initiating this series, which aims to increase the impact of vertebrate paleontology on the scientific community at large, the collection of articles in Volume 42 includes several papers that have been selected because they introduce new fossils that have changed current ideas about the evolutionary history of their respective vertebrate groups, which we briefly introduce below.

Pandas in the Balkans––Ailuropoda melanoleuca, the giant panda, is one of the most beautiful and beloved animals on Earth. It has been a national treasure in China and the logo of WWF since 1961. The species has been assessed as “rare” or “endangered” since 1965, but thanks to conservation efforts it has recovered and reached the assessment of “vulnerable” in 2016 (https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/712/121745669). What do we know about the origin and early history of this animal? Qigao Jiangzuo and Nikolai Spassov (2022) shed light on this question in their article “A late Turolian giant panda from Bulgaria and the early evolution and dispersal of the panda lineage”. After the description of a new fossil species and the exhaustive comparison of the dental morphology of living and fossil pandas, they conclude that, independently of the lineage leading to the Asian and only living species of the group, another now extinct lineage evolved in Europe during the Miocene.

Billfish Evolution––Among the apex pelagic predators of tropical and subtropical seas, the impressive istiophorid billfishes have long been the focus of commercial and recreational fisheries and are currently under increasing pressure due to overfishing and rising global temperatures (Thoya et al., 2022). Although many aspects of billfishes have been investigated, their evolutionary history is relatively poorly known, largely due to the paucity of morphological studies of living species combined with the fact that most of their fossils are isolated bones that make taxonomic identifications difficult. In “Fossil evidence for earlier radiation in istiophorid billfishes (Teleostei, Istiophoriformes) uncovered by comparative morphology of the caudal vertebrae” Carlos De Garcia and co-authors (2022) describe new billfish remains from the Upper Miocene of Panama, provide a framework to identify fossil istiophorid billfish using isolated caudal vertebrae, and analyze the morphology of billfish caudal vertebrae and its significance for the evolution of the group. They show that the development of lateral apophyses for attachment of the powerful musculature of the caudal peduncle are among the morphological novelties associated with the potential to develop gigantism, which led to the radiation of istiophorid billfishes during the Miocene.

Reflecting on Mammalian Evolution––The ever-increasing quality of the fossil record interpolates known, distinct morphologies, muddying terminology that could formerly be clearly applied to anatomical features. Even heavily studied features for inferring phylogeny and interpreting functional morphology such as those of the mammalian jaw and hearing apparatus are blurred over time as transitional morphologies are discovered in new fossil taxa. One such complex is the reflected lamina of the angular in mammals and the fossae and cleft bounded by it. Homologous with the ectotympanic of modern mammals, the function of the reflected lamina in non-mammalian synapsids has remained mysterious, likely due to the lack of a specific, consistent terminology for describing it and its surrounding spaces as a plethora of new early synapsids have been discovered. In “Nomenclature, comparative anatomy, and evolution of the reflected lamina of the angular in non-mammalian synapsids,” Olroyd and Sidor (2022), remedy this problem by revising the terminology surrounding these important evolutionary features. Aided by tomographic data to investigate the exceedingly fragile reflected laminae of several non-mammalian synapsids, they establish the ancestral morphology of the lamina and trace its modifications through evolution, moving closer to ruling out certain functional hypotheses, at last approaching the question of what role(s) the lamina and associated spaces played in the evolution of chewing and/or hearing in mammals.

Constricting the Evolutionary History of Snakes––Hypotheses surrounding the origins and evolution of the clade Serpentes are as varied as people’s feelings toward modern snakes. A key clade for understanding the origin of snakes is Madtsoiidae, a mostly Gondwanan group with a large body size range that only went extinct in the Pleistocene. In “A new madtsoiid snake from the Paleogene of South America (northwestern Argentina), based on an articulated postcranial skeleton,” Garberoglio and colleagues (Garberoglio et al., 2022) describe a new, 3-meter-long madtsoiid that they dubbed Powellophis after the late Argentine paleontologist Dr. Jaime Powell. Powellophis is inferred to have lived in a variety of environments, similar to modern boids, from terrestrial, to aquatic, to arboreal. The new study fills in an important spatiotemporal gap in madtsoiid evolution and provides new, important data for understanding the phylogeny of Madtsoiidae and that of snakes in general.

A Theropod at Large––As anyone familiar with JVP over the past decade knows, recognition of new fossil species has continued at a rapid pace. Newer methodological advances have increased the number of tools used to recognize new fossil species. In “Limb bone histology of theropod dinosaurs from the Early Jurassic of South Africa,” Weiss and colleagues (2022) present osteohistological evidence for a hitherto unrecognized species of large-bodied theropod that lived alongside the relatively common theropod Megapnosaurus. The field of paleohistology has seen explosive growth in recent years, with quantitative, large-dataset studies becoming increasingly commonplace. JVP accommodates high-resolution, large-file-size histological images in partnership with Morphobank and other repositories. Aside from grounding paleobiological inferences, paleohistological studies like that of Weiss et al. enrich the evidence for past diversity and provide an impetus and expectation for future, targeted fieldwork.

A Flock of Fledgling Aetosaurs––Of the myriad tank-like archosaurs that have evolved through the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, aetosaurs are some of the most bizarre and least understood. With an abundant fossil record, relatively low known generic diversity, and brief geologic range, aetosaurs can be a useful biostratigraphic tool, but relatively few studies have investigated their paleobiology. In “Triassic nursery? Evidence of gregarious behavior in juvenile pseudosuchian archosaurs as inferred by humeral histology of Aetosaurus ferratus (Norian; southern Germany),” Teschner et al. (2023) investigated an assemblage of 24 aetosaur individuals that were found in close proximity in a deposit that showed little signs of transport. The osteohistology of the largest and smallest individuals was investigated, and despite their four-fold difference in size, they were both less than a year old at death and preserved bone tissue that would have been deposited around the time of hatching. Teschner et al. (2023) surmise that the 24 individuals may represent a clutch that stayed together for an extended period of time, with strong intraspecific variation in growth rates. The social lives of this ephemeral but important clade will likely draw increased attention for some time to come.

Oddball Possums––Marsupials are today a relatively small and very specialized group of mammals restricted to the Americas and Australasia. Like the famous kangaroos, marsupials are well known because they spend much of their embryonic development outside the womb, inside a pouch. What not everyone knows is that these wonderful mammals have an evolutionary history that begins with a major diversification during the Cretaceous, reaching a worldwide distribution, after which they became extinct in Europe, Asia, and North America, likely due to competition with placental mammals. Thanks to the isolation of Australasia as a result of plate tectonics, marsupials found a refuge where they have not only been able to survive, but have flourished to produce a diversity of groups, many of which are now extinct. Among the latter, the ektopodontids are a rare group of marsupials so far only recorded in Australia from Oligocene to Pleistocene outcrops. In “A new ektopodontid possum (Diprotodontia, Ektopodontidae) from the Oligocene of central Australia, and its implications for phalangeroid interrelationships” Arthur I. Crichton and coauthors (2023) describe a new species that leads them to analyze the phylogenetic relationships of all phalangeroid possums using morphological and molecular data. Considering the results of their phylogenetic analyses and the high morphological diversity that phalangeroids had already attained by the late Oligocene, they conclude that the group must have had an extensive evolutionary history that predates their earliest records and has yet to be discovered.

Exceptional preservation, cutting-edge methodology––Applying novel study methods in two papers recently published in JVP, Ane Elise Schrøder and co-authors (2022, 2023) reveal the importance of the hitherto little-known Danish Eocene fish fauna. Using element mapping by micro-XRF spectrometry to reveal as much anatomical detail as possible, the authors achieve highly detailed and groundbreaking studies. Their paper “Butyrumichthys henricii gen. et sp. nov.: a new stromateiform fish from the lower Eocene Fur Formation, Denmark” (Schrøder et al., 2023) becomes a benchmark for the knowledge of the anatomy of ancient stromateiforms because their description of the new fossil fish makes the new species the best understood among the oldest members of the order Stromateiformes. The new taxon is represented by several complete and excellently preserved fossils. Among them, in recognition of their value to science, one specimen was generously donated from a private collection by S. T. Nielsen to the Natural History Museum of Denmark.

Lizards in a Warming World––Forecasting future biotic responses to climate change requires a detailed understanding of the past, and the fossil record provides the primary dataset with which to understand the history of biotic change. Paleogene hyperthermals represent the best ancient analogue for our current warming world, so characterizing evolutionary and ecological change through these hyperthermals has received increasing research attention over the past decades. Lizards are understudied in this regard relative to their mammalian counterparts, but a trio of papers by Čerňanský and colleagues (Čerňanský et al., 2022a, 2022b, 2023), two of which were published in JVP, have begun to shed light on the evolution of lizards through Paleogene hyperthermals in Europe. Most recently, in “Iguanian lizards (Acrodonta and Pleurodonta) from the earliest Eocene (MP 7) of Dormaal, Belgium: the first stages of these iconic reptiles in Europe,” Čerňanský et al. (2023) have shown that both Old World and New World iguanas coexisted in the Eocene of Europe, and that some, like the new taxon, Bifurcodentodon ragei, were highly specialized, likely increasing their extinction risk through volatile climatic periods.

Pelican History and How They Came to the Americas––Although their present distribution is nearly global, the relatively short fossil record of pelicans is rather modest. All living species of pelicans are classified in the single genus Pelecanus, and most fossils have been referred to this genus, including many cases referred to one or another of the living species. However, phylogenetic analyses show two independent lineages known as the Old World and New World pelican clades. The oldest record of a pelecanid, Eopelecanus aegyptiacus from the Upper Eocene of Egypt, described by El Adli et al. (2021), has recently been published in JVP. The African record of the oldest pelecanid supports the idea that Pelecanus originated in Africa and dispersed from there to North America via Eurasia, allowing the evolution of the New World pelican clade. Noriega and coauthors (2023) challenge this hypothesis with their study of a new fossil species of Pelecanus in “A new pelican (Aves: Pelecanidae) from the upper Miocene of Argentina: new clues to the origin of New World lineages.” They review the complete fossil record of the group and conclude that a different dispersal route of pelicans from Africa directly to the Americas is possible.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Both Senior Editors contributed equally to this editorial.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The modernization of JVP through the implementation of all the above changes for authors, as well as various changes to our internal workflow, would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of our Editorial Board members and the commitment and cooperation of our publisher, Taylor & Francis. We would like to thank the following Staff Editors (in alphabetical order): Robert L. Anemone, John M. Harris, Léa Leuzinger, Hillary Maddin, Damián Ruiz-Ramoni, and Juliana Sterli. Memoirs Editor Patrick M. O'Connor. Phylogenetics Editor Pedro L. Godoy. Associate Editors (in alphabetical order): Thodoris Argyriou, Amy Balanoff, Gabriel (Gabe) Bever, Faysal Bibi, Matthew Borths, Carole J. Burrow, Esperanza Cerdeño Serrano, Vanesa De Pietri, Jörg Fröbisch, Adam Huttenlocker, Juergen Kriwet, Olivier Lambert, Tyler Lyson, Daniel Madzia, Thomas Martin, Elizabeth Martin-Silverstone, Erin Maxwell, Julie Meachen, F. Robin O'Keefe, Guillermo W. Rougier, Steve Salisbury, Marcelo Sánchez-Villagra, Daniela Schwarz, Hans-Dieter Sues, Charles J. Underwood, Pia Viglietti, Yi Hongyu. Last but not least, we would like to thank the authors whose valuable contributions make JVP a leading journal in palaeontology.