The Varanidae are a family of lizards in the superfamily Varanoidea and order Anguimorpha. The family, a group of carnivorous and frugivorous lizards, includes the living genus Varanus and a number of extinct genera more closely related to Varanus than to the earless monitor lizard (Lanthanotus). Varanus includes the Komodo dragon, crocodile monitor, savannah monitor, the goannas of Australia and Southeast Asia, and various other species with a similarly distinctive appearance. Their closest living relatives are the earless monitor lizard and chinese crocodile lizard. The oldest members of the family are known from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia.
Compsognathus is a genus of small, bipedal, carnivorous theropod dinosaur. Members of its single species Compsognathus longipes could grow to around the size of a turkey. They lived about 150 million years ago, during the Tithonian age of the late Jurassic period, in what is now Europe. Paleontologists have found two well-preserved fossils, one in Germany in the 1850s and the second in France more than a century later. Today, C. longipes is the only recognized species, although the larger specimen discovered in France in the 1970s was once thought to belong to a separate species and named C. corallestris.
Michael S. Engel, FLS, FRES is an American paleontologist and entomologist, notable for contributions to insect evolutionary biology and classification. In connection with his studies he has undertaken field expeditions in Central Asia, Asia Minor, the Levant, Arabia, eastern Africa, the high Arctic, and South and North America, and has published more than 983 papers in scientific journals and over 925 new living and fossil species. Some of Engel's research images were included in exhibitions on the aesthetic value of scientific imagery.
Anaxyelidae is a family of incense cedar wood wasps in the order Hymenoptera. It contains only one living genus, Syntexis, which has only a single species, native to Western North America. Fossils of the family extend back to the Middle Jurassic, belonging to over a dozen extinct genera, with a particularly high diversity during the Early Cretaceous. Syntexis lay eggs in the sapwood of conifers, preferring recently burnt wood.
The Salamandroidea are a suborder of salamanders, referred to as advanced salamanders. The members of the suborder are found worldwide except for Antarctica, sub-Saharan Africa, and Oceania. They differ from suborder Cryptobranchoidea as the angular and prearticular bones in their lower jaws are fused, their trunk ribs are bicapitate, and all members use internal fertilization. The female is fertilized by means of a spermatophore, a sperm-containing cap placed by the male in her cloaca. The sperm is stored in spermathecae on the roof of the cloaca until it is needed at the time of oviposition.
Compsognathidae is a family of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs. Compsognathids were small carnivores, generally conservative in form, hailing from the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods. The bird-like features of these species, along with other dinosaurs such as Archaeopteryx inspired the idea for the connection between dinosaur reptiles and modern-day avian species. Compsognathid fossils preserve diverse integument — skin impressions are known from four genera commonly placed in the group, Compsognathus, Sinosauropteryx, Sinocalliopteryx, and Juravenator. While the latter three show evidence of a covering of some of the earliest primitive feathers over much of the body, Juravenator and Compsognathus also show evidence of scales on the tail or hind legs. "Ubirajara jubatus", informally described in 2020, had elaborate integumentary structures on its back and shoulders superficially similar to the display feathers of a standardwing bird-of-paradise, and unlike any other non-avian dinosaur currently described.
The Cryptobranchoidea are a suborder of salamanders found in Asia, European Russia, and the United States. They are known as primitive salamanders, in contrast to Salamandroidea, the advanced salamanders. It has two living subdivisions, Cryptobranchidae, which includes Asian giant salamanders and hellbenders, and Hynobiidae, commonly known as Asian salamanders.
Dalianraptor is a dubious genus of prehistoric bird that lived in China about 120 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous Period that was found in the Jiufotang Formation of China. It was initially believed to have been a possible dromaeosaurid before it was described in 2005.
Zhongornis is a genus of primitive avialan that lived during the Early Cretaceous. It was found in rocks of the Yixian Formation in Lingyuan City (China), and described by Gao et al. in 2008.
Liaoxitriton is an extinct genus of prehistoric cryptobranchoid salamanders from the Early Cretaceous of China. It contains one species, L. zhongjiani, from the Aptian aged Yixian Formation. A second species, L. daohugouensis from the Middle/Late Jurassic Daohugou Beds, was moved to the genus Neimengtriton in 2021 after a number of studies noted morphological differences between the two genera.
The Yixian Formation is a geological formation in Jinzhou, Liaoning, People's Republic of China, that spans about 1.6 million years during the early Cretaceous period. It is known for its fossils, listed below.
Shenqiornis is a bird genus of the Enantiornithes. It was found in the Qiaotou Member of the Huajiying Formation of Hebei Province, China, and is therefore of uncertain age. The Qiaotou Member may correlate with the more well-known Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation, and so probably is dated to the Aptian, around 122 million years ago.
Rapaxavis a genus of enantiornithine bird. It has been found in the Jiufotang Formation in Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
Juchilestes is an amphidontid mammal genus from the early Cretaceous. It lived in what is now the Beipiao of western Liaoning, eastern China. It is known from the holotype D2607, which consists of three-dimensionally preserved, partial skull with mandibles and some teeth. It was found in 2004 from the Lujiatun Site of the Yixian Formation. It was first named by Chun-Ling Gao, Gregory P. Wilson, Zhe-Xi Luo, A. Murat Maga, Qingjin Meng and Xuri Wang in 2010 and the type species is Juchilestes liaoningensis.
Huoshanornis is a genus of enantiornithine birds which existed in what is now Jiufotang Formation of Western Liaoning Province, China during the early Cretaceous period. Its fossil remains were found at Chaoyang City. It was first named by Xia Wang, Zihui Zhang, Chunling Gao, Lianhai Hou, Qingjin Meng and Jinyuan Liu in 2010 and the type species is Huoshanornis huji.
Camptodontornis is an extinct genus of enantiornithine bird which existed in what is now Chaoyang in Liaoning Province, China during the early Cretaceous period. It is known from a well-preserved skeleton including a skull found in the Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning Province. Its original generic name was "Camptodontus" ; it was named by Li Li, En-pu Gong, Li-dong Zhang, Ya-jun Yang and Lian-hai Hou in 2010. However, the name had previously been used for a genus of beetle. The type species is "Camptodontus" yangi. Demirjian (2019) coined a replacement generic name Camptodontornis. The status of C. yangi as a distinct species is disputed, with Wang et al. (2015) considering it to be a probable synonym of Longipteryx chaoyangensis.
Pseudopulex is a genus of extinct primitive fleas that lived between the Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous periods in what is now modern-day China. The Latin root for the name Pseudopulex roughly translates to "false fleas".
Liaoningvenator is a genus of troodontid theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of China. It contains a single species, L. curriei, named after paleontologist Phillip J. Currie in 2017 by Shen Cai-Zhi and colleagues from an articulated, nearly complete skeleton, one of the most complete troodontid specimens known. Shen and colleagues found indicative traits that placed Liaoningvenator within the Troodontidae. These traits included its numerous, small, and closely packed teeth, as well as the vertebrae towards the end of its tail having shallow grooves in place of neural spines on their top surfaces.
Aneuretopsychidae is an extinct family of scorpionflies known from the Mesozoic. Fossils are known from the Jurassic (Callovian-Oxfordian) to the early Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian). It is part of Mesopsychoidea, a group of scorpionflies with siphonate proboscis. They are suggested to have been nectarivores, feeding off the liquid pollination drops of and acting as pollinators for now extinct insect pollinated gymnosperms such as Bennettitales.
Pseudopulicidae is an extinct family of stem-group fleas from the Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous of China. They represent the oldest known group of stem-fleas. Like other stem-group "giant fleas", they are much larger and lack the specialised morphology of modern fleas.
