AMNH Library Digital Repository
The AMNH Library Digital Repository is an archive maintained by the Research Library for AMNH Scientific Publications, AMNH scholarly output and other original and published materials digitized by the Library. All information in the repository is freely accessible to scholars around the world to support their research.
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Recent Submissions
A new genus for the “Alfaroi Group” of Oryzomys sensu lato (Rodentia, Cricetidae, Sigmodontinae) (American Museum novitates, no. 4030)
(American Museum of Natural History., 2024-12-04) Voss, Robert S.
A new cricetid rodent genus is described for the Alfaroi Group of Oryzomys sensu lato. The new genus, which includes seven Mesoamerican species of small oryzomyines, is demonstrably monophyletic and easily diagnosed morphologically from its sister taxon, Handleyomys.
Supplemental material for 'Unravelling parallel conceptions of the Ordovician trilobite Flexicalymene senaria (Conrad, 1841) and description of Flexicalymene trentonensis, n. sp. (American Museum novitates, no. 4029)'
(American Museum of Natural History., 2024-11-26) Hopkins, Melanie J.; Martin, Markus J.
Supplemental material for 'Unravelling parallel conceptions of the Ordovician trilobite Flexicalymene senaria (Conrad, 1841) and description of Flexicalymene trentonensis, n. sp. (American Museum novitates, no. 4029)' - https://hdl.handle.net/2246/7386
Unravelling parallel conceptions of the Ordovician trilobite Flexicalymene senaria (Conrad, 1841) and description of Flexicalymene trentonensis, n. sp. (American Museum novitates, no. 4029)
(American Museum of Natural History., 2024-11-26) Hopkins, Melanie J.; Martin, Markus J.
Over the past 180 years, there has been occasional observation that museum collections of specimens identified as “Calymene senaria” or “Flexicalymene senaria” comprise more than one species. This was first recognized within a year after the species was named and has been remarked upon as recently as 2002. Perusal of compiled literature in concert with examination of new and historical collections at the American Museum of Natural History, the New York State Museum, Paleontological Research Institution, and Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, reveals that this history is due to the perpetuation of parallel conceptions of this species, in part because of the lack of an original type and relatively recent adoption of a neotype (Ross, 1967), as well as the application of the name to specimens from a wide range of localities. We review the taxonomic history of Flexicalymene senaria (Conrad, 1841) and provide a formal description of a second species, which we designate Flexicalymene trentonensis, n. sp. In addition we note that many specimens in museum collections of “senaria” also include specimens of the genus Gravicalymene. We correct taxonomic assignments for over 350 specimen lots housed in the above repositories, and describe how the clarification of this taxonomic history impacts our understanding of important faunal assemblages (Walcott-Rust Quarry, NY) and the reinterpretation of previously documented phyletic patterns.
Defining the Central Mountains Archaic : Great Basin natural and cultural biographies : the archaeology of Monitor Valley, contribution 5 (Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History, number 106)
(American Museum of Natural History., 2024-11-22) Thomas, David Hurst.; Canaday, Timothy W.; Layton, Thomas N.; Millar, Constance I.; Pendleton, Lorann S. A.; Robinson, Erick.; Rogers, Alexander K.; Semon, Anna M.
This second volume of the Alta Toquima trilogy situates Monitor Valley archaeology within the Central Mountains Archaic, introduced here as a taxonomic equivalent to the better-known Lovelock culture, Fremont complex, and the Virgin Branch of Ancestral Puebloans. This analysis integrates Monitor Valley into the broader Intermountain West using seven multiscalar time slices that address paleoclimatic and cultural change from the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene (pre-7000 cal b.c.) through the Little Ice Age (cal a.d. 1350–1800). This overview establishes that the loglinear relationships between two independent cultural proxies (nearly 5000 cultural radiocarbon dates and more than 47,000 time-sensitive projectile points) are highly correlated (r = 0.988) and relevant for explicating region-by-region demographic change. We hypothesize that the Intermountain West achieved (or exceeded) exponential growth throughout more than 90% of the 13 millennia spanning Paleoindian colonization through Euro-American contact. During two notable exceptions—the Late Holocene Dry Period (850 cal b.c.–cal a.d. 100) and the late 13th-century drought—human population growth fell below exponential expectations. The Late Holocene Dry Period (LHDP) was a pivotal climatic event that varied in geographic range, duration, and intensity. The 42°–40° N dipole hypothesis holds that persistent La Niña-like climatic conditions resulted in an anomalously moist northern Great Basin and exceptionally arid southwestern Great Basin, separated by an undulating dipole transition between 42° and 40° north latitude. Human demography plummeted below exponential expectations as foragers abandoned almost all settlements south of the 42°–40° N dipole, marking an intensification that shifted away from “man caves” and logistical bighorn hunting to extended family bands who created the first alpine residences at Alta Toquima. The high-elevation settlements were occupied only during the driest of the short-term xeric-mesic cycles during (and after) the LHDP. In wetter times, the alpine houses were abandoned in favor of repurposed man caves and other subalpine base camps. These syncopated intensifications began a full millennium before the arrival of bow technology into the Central Mountains Archaic. The other exception to exponential growth was the tumultuous late 13th-century drought, when the Fremont complex dissolved after a dozen centuries of farming, the Lovelock culture disappeared, and the Virgin Branch of Ancestral Puebloans collapsed—all part of the far-reaching demographic decline in the American Southwest and elsewhere across interior North America. In the aftermath of these fundamental economic shifts, changing social landscapes, and human migrations, the Little Ice Age returned to exponential growth during the challenges and windfalls for Shoshonean communities of the Intermountain West. This volume proposes and tests multiple hypotheses addressing the deep natural and cultural histories of the Intermountain West. Resilience theory proves to be an important tool in unraveling relationships between abrupt climatic and behavioral adjustments, human paleogeography, piñon pine processing, multiple meanings of abandonment, adaptation to lacustrine and desert-mountain mosaics, and shifting landscapes of ritualized practice.
A new archaeostomatopod from the Pennsylvanian Wea Shale Member, Nebraska (American Museum novitates, no. 4028)
(American Museum of Natural History., 2024-11-06) Bicknell, Russell D. C.; Smith, Patrick M. (Patrick Mark); Klompmaker, Adiël A.; Hegna, Thomas.
Mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda) are extant, marine, predatory arthropods, but these malacostracan pancrustaceans are also occasionally preserved in fossil assemblages, particularly in Carboniferous and Cretaceous deposits. Carboniferous species fall into two suborders—Palaeostomatopodea and Archaeostomatopodea—and represent the ancestral forms that gave rise to modern lineages. Herein, we describe hitherto unknown specimens belonging to the archaeostomatopod genus Tyrannophontes from the Pennsylvanian-aged Wea Shale Member, eastern Nebraska. We explore the preservation of these fossils using scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. These approaches reveal additional morphological characteristics, including unique appendicular data, such as the earliest occurrence of biramous gilled appendages in Stomatopoda. We suggest that further examination of black shales will likely uncover novel records of these rare pancrustaceans.