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Newsletter Number 58 The Palaeontology Newsletter Contents 58 Association Business 2 News 8 Association Meetings 10 Meeting Reports 14 Mysterious Fossils 25 From our correspondents Inferring Developmental Mode 26 Foiling vertebrate inversion 32 PalaeoBioSuperstar 40 Palaeo-math 101: Regression 4 44 Obituary: Ehrhard Voigt 54 Progressive Palaeontology 2005 57 Future meetings of other bodies 58 Book Reviews 72 Palaeontology vol 48 parts 1 & 2 92–93 Discounts for PalAss members 94 Reminder: The deadline for copy for Issue no 59 is 20th May 2005 On the Web: <http://www.palass.org/> Newsletter 58 2 Newsletter 58 3 Association Business the compilation of fossil collections, and their care and conservation, to published studies in recognised journals. Nominations should comprise a short statement (up to one page of A4) outlining the candidate’s principal achievements. Members putting forward candidates should Nominations for Council also be prepared, if requested, to write an illustrated profile in support of their nominee. The deadline for nominations is 1st September 2005. The award comprises a cash prize plus a At the AGM in December 2005, the following vacancies will occur on Council: framed scroll, and is usually presented at the Annual meeting. Vice-President Sylvester-Bradley Award Newsletter Editor three handling editors Awards are made to assist palaeontological research (travel, visits to museums, fieldwork etc.), one Ordinary member with each award having a maximum value of £1,000. Preference is given to applications for a single purpose (rather than top-ups of other grant applications) and no definite age limit is Nominations are now invited for these posts. Please note that each candidate must be proposed applied, although some preference may be given to younger applicants or those at the start by at least two members of the Association and that any individual may not propose more than of their careers. The award is open to both amateur and professional palaeontologists, but two candidates. Nominations must be accompanied by the candidates’ written agreement to preference will be given to members of the Association. The awards are announced at the AGM. stand for election and a single sentence describing their interests. Council will also consider awards in excess of £1,000, particularly for pilot projects which are All potential Council Members are asked to consider that: likely to facilitate a future application to a national research funding body. ‘Each Council Member needs to be aware that, since the Palaeontological Association Electronic submission of applications, through the website, is preferred and will comprise a is a Registered Charity, in the eyes of the law he/she becomes a Trustee of that CV, an account of research aims and objectives (5,000 characters maximum), and a breakdown Charity. Under the terms of the Charities Act 1992, legal responsibility for the proper of the proposed expenditure. Each application should be accompanied by the names of a management of the Palaeontological Association lies with each Member of Council.’ personal and a scientific referee. Successful candidates must produce a report for Palaeontology The closing date for nominations is Monday, 3rd October 2005. They should be sent to the Newsletter and are asked to consider the Association’s meetings and publications as media for Secretary: Dr Howard A. Armstrong, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Durham, conveying the research results. Deadline 1st November 2005. Durham DH1 3LE, email <[email protected]>. Mary Anning Award 2004: Phil Bennett Awards and Prizes Phil Bennett’s interest in palaeontology began over ten years ago with the collection of graptolites from the Llandovery of mid Wales. He now specialises in fossils from the Old Red Nominations are now being sought for the Hodson Fund and Mary Anning Award. Sandstone. Hodson Fund Phil has donated, or made available for display, valuable material of vertebrates, arthropods and vascular plants at several Welsh institutions, including the Ludlow Museum, the Brecon This award is conferred on a palaeontologist who is under the age of 35 and who has made Museum in Powys, and the National Museum in Cardiff. a notable early contribution to the science. Candidates must be nominated by at least two members of the Association, and the application must be supported by an appropriate academic Since 1999, he has collected an extremely well preserved assemblage from the Early Devonian case. Closing date for nominations is 1st September 2005. Nominations will be considered and near Brecon. Much of the vertebrate material is articulated, including the most complete a decision made at the October meeting of Council. The award will comprise a fund of £1,000, specimen of the heterostracan Protopteraspis ever found. He has made this material available to presented at the Annual Meeting. a variety of specialists. Mary Anning Award Since 2002 Phil has focused on a particular plant bed. A trigonotarbid arachnid, donated to the National Museum in Cardiff, is the oldest known arachnid from Wales (and the second oldest The award is open to all those who are not professionally employed within palaeontology but from anywhere) and is the subject of a paper just published in Palaeontology by Jason Dunlop who have made an outstanding contribution to the subject. Such contributions may range from and Paul Selden. Phil has also discovered other arthropods, including an undescribed myriapod, in the bed. Plant material from this locality is under investigation by Diane Edwards. Newsletter 58 4 Newsletter 58 5 Phil Bennett has shown enormous dedication in compiling a scientifically important collection a landmark – a superbly illustrated, meticulous study of all the trunk muscles, requiring highly of fossil vertebrates, invertebrates and plants from the Silurian and Devonian of Wales and skilled dissection, comparative anatomy, and phylogenetic analysis. A study of the kinematics of the Welsh Borders, which he has made available for expert investigation at every opportunity, feeding in the giant living millipede Archispirostreptus is in press. resulting in a number of important publications. Heather came to Yale in the Summer of 2002 to return to her primary focus, research on fossils. Earlier this year she published (in Journal of Paleontology with Lyall Anderson) the oldest definitive land dwelling myriapod, a new genus Pneumodesmus from the Silurian of Stonehaven, Mary Anning Award 2004: Bjørn Funke which preserves the earliest evidence of air breathing in any animal of any kind. She has published on myriapods from the Silurian to the Cretaceous, and has recently embarked on As a schoolboy Bjørn Funke was one of the initiators of a geology club, “Steinklubben,” for young a field and laboratory investigation of early terrestrial arthropods, using hydrofluoric acid to children living in the Oslo area. He regularly brought fossils to the University Palaeontology dissolve mid-Paleozoic siliciclastics in pursuit of cuticle fragments. Museum to be identified and encouraged the staff there to help lead field trips for the club sponsored by the Museum, parents and the Esso company. This club is still active more than 40 Heather Wilson’s contributions to myriapod biology and systematics exploit her remarkable years later and Bjørn Funke, although no longer leader, is still an active participant and regularly range of technical and intellectual skills: she is one of those rare individuals who is just as guides excursions. comfortable working with living animals as she is with ancient ones; with molecular sequences as she is with morphological data; with trace fossils as she is with body fossils, with function as In 1994 Bjørn set up what soon became known as PalVen (friends of the Palaeontological she is with phylogeny – and with teaching as she is with research. Museum, with himself as leader), an organization of amateur collectors who meet regularly at the Museum, organize lectures and excursions, exchange and identify fossils, and donate specimens for sale in the Museum shop. Income from these sales has exceeded well over €50,000, which the Museum has used to purchase top quality specimens, mainly for display Lapworth Medal: James W. Valentine purposes. James W. Valentine, Member of the National Academy of Sciences, Paleontological Society Many fine specimens found by Bjørn are also in the Oslo Museum’s type or reference collections. medallist, former President of the Paleontological Society, is professor emeritus of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is affiliated with the Museum of Bjørn Funke has done much to inspire young Norwegians and show them the rewards of Paleontology and the Center for Integrative Genomics. He has spent most of his career at the collecting fossils, and has devoted his entire spare time to the service of both amateur and University of California – taking his PhD at UCLA in 1958, and spending time at Davis (1964–77), professional palaeontologists. Santa Barbara (1977–90), and subsequently Berkeley. Jim has researched the gamut of the history of life – in terms of both organisms and the time Hodson Award: Heather Wilson scale. He is a gentle giant: a quiet modest man, generous to his colleagues, contemptuous of rivalries within the discipline, excited by discovery, and a great enthusiast for science and Heather Wilson’s interest in fossil arthropods started as an undergraduate at Mount Holyoke scientists. But don’t be taken in by the calm exterior. In the late 1990s
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