Situated on the Belubula River, Canowindra is a historic township and the largest population centre in Cabonne Shire. The town is located between Orange and Cowra in the central west of New South Wales, Australia. The curving main street, Gaskill Street, is partly an urban conservation area.
Romer's gap is an apparent gap in the Paleozoic tetrapod fossil record used in the study of evolutionary biology, which represent periods from which excavators have not yet found relevant fossils. It is named after American paleontologist Alfred Romer, who first recognised it in 1956. Recent discoveries in Scotland are beginning to close this gap in palaeontological knowledge.
Bothriolepis was a widespread, abundant and diverse genus of antiarch placoderms that lived during the Middle to Late Devonian period of the Paleozoic Era. Historically, Bothriolepis resided in an array of paleo-environments spread across every paleocontinent, including near shore marine and freshwater settings. Most species of Bothriolepis were characterized as relatively small, benthic, freshwater detritivores, averaging around 30 centimetres (12 in) in length. However, the largest species, B. rex, had an estimated bodylength of 170 centimetres (67 in). Although expansive with over 60 species found worldwide, comparatively Bothriolepis is not unusually more diverse than most modern bottom dwelling species around today.
Groenlandaspis is an extinct genus of arthrodire from the Late Devonian. Fossils of the different species are found in late Devonian strata in all continents except eastern Asia. The generic name commemorates the fact that the first specimens of the type species were found in Greenland.
Gogonasus was a lobe-finned fish known from three-dimensionally preserved 380-million-year-old fossils found from the Gogo Formation in Western Australia. It lived in the Late Devonian period, on what was once a 1,400-kilometre-long coral reef off the Kimberley coast surrounding north-western Australia. Gogonasus was a small fish reaching 30 to 40 centimetres in length.
Mandageria fairfaxi is an extinct lobe-finned fish that lived during the Late Devonian period. It is related to the much larger Hyneria; although Mandageria was smaller, likely hunted in a similar manner.
Gooloogongia is a genus of prehistoric lobe-finned fish which belonged to the group of rhizodont fishes. Gooloogongia lived during the Late Devonian period. Fossils have been found in the Canowindra site, (Australia). It was named by Zerina Johanson and Per Ahlberg in 1998. In general size and shape Gooloogongia is similar to the modern saratoga which lives in the tropical rivers of northern Australia.
John Albert Long is an Australian paleontologist who is currently Strategic Professor in Palaeontology at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. He was previously the Vice President of Research and Collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. He is also an author of popular science books. His main area of research is on the fossil fish of the Late Devonian Gogo Formation from northern Western Australia. It has yielded many important insights into fish evolution, such as Gogonasus and Materpiscis, the later specimen being crucial to our understanding of the origins of vertebrate reproduction.
Incisoscutum is an extinct genus of arthrodire placoderm from the Early Frasnian Gogo Reef, from Late Devonian Australia. The genus contains two species I. ritchiei, named after Alex Ritchie, a palaeoichthyologist and senior fellow of the Australian Museum, and I. sarahae, named after Sarah Long, daughter of its discoverer and describer, John A. Long.
Ligulalepis is an extinct genus of stem-osteichthyans which lived from the Silurian to the Early Devonian. Ligulalepis was first described from isolated scales found in the Taemas-Wee jasper limestones of New South Wales by Hans-Peter Schultze (1968) and further material described by Burrow (1994). A nearly complete skull found in the same general location was described in Nature by Basden et al. (2000) claiming the genus was closely related to basal ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii). In 2015 Flinders University student Benedict King found a more complete new skull of this genus which was formally described by Clement et al. (2018), showing Ligulalepis to be on the stem of all osteichthyans.
Marsdenichthys is an extinct genus of Devonian tetrapodomorph. Fossils have been found from Mount Howitt in Victoria, Australia from strata that are Givetian-Frasnian in age. Mount Howitt is an important site that has been the source of many tetrapodomorph fossils, including Beelarongia and Howittichthys, both of which were first described from the locality.
Koonwarra is a town in the South Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. At the 2016 census, Koonwarra had a population of 404. The town straddles the South Gippsland Highway. Located around 128 km southeast of Melbourne, the town was served by rail from the 1890s until 1991 with the closing of the rail line to Barry Beach.
Mount Ritchie is a mountain rising over 1600 m in the southeast part of Warren Range, Antarctica. The feature is 5.6 km (3 nmi) northeast of Wise Peak on the west side of Deception Glacier. It was named by the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition (VUWAE), 1970–71, after Alex Ritchie, curator of fossils at the Australian Museum, Sydney, a member of the VUWAE party that discovered important sites of fossil fish in this Skelton Neve area.
The Lake Mungo remains are three prominent sets of human remains that are possibly Aboriginal Australian: Lake Mungo 1, Lake Mungo 3, and Lake Mungo 2 (LM2). Lake Mungo is in New South Wales, Australia, specifically the World Heritage listed Willandra Lakes Region.
Paleontology in Pennsylvania refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The geologic column of Pennsylvania spans from the Precambrian to Quaternary. During the early part of the Paleozoic, Pennsylvania was submerged by a warm, shallow sea. This sea would come to be inhabited by creatures like brachiopods, bryozoans, crinoids, graptolites, and trilobites. The armored fish Palaeaspis appeared during the Silurian. By the Devonian the state was home to other kinds of fishes. On land, some of the world's oldest tetrapods left behind footprints that would later fossilize. Some of Pennsylvania's most important fossil finds were made in the state's Devonian rocks. Carboniferous Pennsylvania was a swampy environment covered by a wide variety of plants. The latter half of the period was called the Pennsylvanian in honor of the state's rich contemporary rock record. By the end of the Paleozoic the state was no longer so swampy. During the Mesozoic the state was home to dinosaurs and other kinds of reptiles, who left behind fossil footprints. Little is known about the early to mid Cenozoic of Pennsylvania, but during the Ice Age it seemed to have a tundra-like environment. Local Delaware people used to smoke mixtures of fossil bones and tobacco for good luck and to have wishes granted. By the late 1800s Pennsylvania was the site of formal scientific investigation of fossils. Around this time Hadrosaurus foulkii of neighboring New Jersey became the first mounted dinosaur skeleton exhibit at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The Devonian trilobite Phacops rana is the Pennsylvania state fossil.
Paleontology in New York refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of New York. New York has a very rich fossil record, especially from the Devonian. However, a gap in this record spans most of the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic.
Harold Oswald Fletcher (1903–1996) was a curator and palaeontologist, associated with the Australian Museum from 1918 and retiring as deputy director in 1967. Fletcher was awarded for his contributions to Antarctic research, joining two journeys there as an assistant biologist, and wrote a personal account of the expeditions to that continent led by Mawson (1929–1931).
The Waterloo Farm lagerstätte is a Famennian lagerstätte in South Africa that constitutes the only known record of a near-polar Devonian coastal ecosystem.
The Mandagery Sandstone is a Late Devonian geological formation in New South Wales, Australia. It is one of several famed Australian lagerstätten, with thousands of exceptional fish fossils found at a site near the town of Canowindra.
Alex Ritchie (1935-2023) was a palaeontologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and the Australian National University in Canberra. He was a member of the Antarctic Expedition that discovered important sites of fossil fish in Antarctica, including Mount Ritchie, which is named after him.
