0000000000948685

AUTHOR

John W. M. Jagt

Notes on some Late Cretaceous goniasterid starfish (Echinodermata, Asteroidea) from Belgium and Germany

Both partially articulated specimens and dissociated marginal ossicles form the basis for erection of two new species of Late Cretaceous goniasterids from the Mons and Liège-Limburg basins (Belgium) and the Hannover area (Germany). Chomataster breizh sp. nov., which recalls the type species, Chomataster acules Spencer, 1913, but differs in several respects, is based on a partial external mould of the marginal frame of disc and arms in flint (upper Campanian Spiennes Chalk Formation; Mons Basin), as well as on a more or less complete individual, preserving small, spherical spines and granules and encased in a flint nodule from the upper Maastrichtian Nekum Member (Maastricht Formation; Liège…

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Comment on the letter of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) dated April 21, 2020 regarding “Fossils from conflict zones and reproducibility of fossil-based scientific data”: Myanmar amber

Motivation for this comment Recently, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) has sent around a letter, dated 21st April, 2020 to more than 300 palaeontological journals, signed by the President, Vice President and a former President of the society (Rayfield et al. 2020). The signatories of this letter request significant changes to the common practices in palaeontology. With our present, multi-authored comment, we aim to argue why these suggestions will not lead to improvement of both practice and ethics of palaeontological research but, conversely, hamper its further development. Although we disagree with most contents of the SVP letter, we appreciate this initiative to discuss scien…

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