Bristol Museum & Art Gallery

ABSTRACT Pachystropheus rhaeticus is a primarily marine diapsid reptile found in Upper Triassic (Rhaetian) deposits in Britain and continental Europe. Although known for a long time, Pachystropheus remains an enigma. It was identified as the oldest choristodere based on similarities between postcranial bones and a sole cranial element. Here, we re-study all available Pachystropheus material, including new specimens, identifying all skeletal elements that are plausibly referrable to the genus. We reject some previous dubious identifications and show that reports of an ectopterygoid, the only cranial element of Pachystropheus described, were incorrect and that supposed skull elements belong to coelacanth fishes. Furthermore, we present CT data for the first time and new palynological data from Pachystropheus-bearing strata, providing a clearer picture of its stratigraphic distribution and the paleoecology of the Penarth Group. The reassessment of its phylogeny using new character informative data, places Pachystropheus as the last of the thalattosaurs, a lineage of marine reptiles abundant throughout the Triassic. We demonstrate that a specimen of Pachystropheus previously reported from the Lower Jurassic is more likely from the Late Rhaetian, and therefore the taxon does not extend across the end-Triassic Extinction. Moreover, this extends the known geological range of thalattosaurs from the Norian–Rhaetian boundary to the latest Rhaetian. Similarities in the postcranial skeleton between Pachystropheus and other askeptosauroid thalattosaurs, particularly Endennasaurus acutirostris, suggest it was able to move on land, but was most likely a primarily marine predator with an ecological niche distinct from coeval marine reptiles (placodonts, ichthyosaurs) and carnivorous fishes (hybodont sharks, actinopterygians).

Abstract This chapter discusses factors that impact upon the potential of archaeological archives to be fully realized and suggests ways in which museum archaeologists and others might play an active role in affecting positive change. It takes the situation in the UK as its focus but covers issues faced by archaeologists internationally, including the curation crisis. It explains what archaeological archives are, how their make-up and significance may vary, and sets these within a summarized chronological and developmental context. Challenges and opportunities brought about by changes to professional practice, standardization, and the introduction of digital technologies are explored across themes relating to access and use. It is illustrated with recent case studies and data collated via sector-wide intelligence gathering programmes and offers insights and provocations relative to past, present, and future archaeological archive activity within museums.

The predation of invasive signal crayfish, Pacifastacus leniusculus (Dana, 1852) by several nesting pairs of lesser black-backed gull, Larus fuscus Linnaeus, 1758 is reported from Steep Holm (51°20.39' N, 3°6.53' W), one of two small islands located in the inner Bristol Channel, United Kingdom. This feeding activity was subsequently observed at a pond in South Wales.

Colonialism, as Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper have pointed out, is often a multilayered process resisting “Manichean” binaries of the metropolitian masters, on the one hand, and the colonized subjects of the imperial periphery, on the other. Along with the structuring of subordination also come complicating subtleties, including histories of close geographical neighbors in which the dominant and the less powerful necessarily interact along various axes, some of which cut through doubled internal experiences of colonization. This is most emphatically the case in terms of the United States and Canada. Especially since the 1960s, it has been commonplace for Canadians to critique the ways in which the United States has “taken over” their culture, institutions of higher learning, natural resources, and material life. Such responses to the hegemony of the “Americans” and the peculiarities of the “Canadians” may well err in an overly nationalistic sense of indignation, but there are grains of truth (economic, cultural, and intellectual) in these views.

Journal of ZoologyVolume 176, Issue 2 p. 271-274 Notes from the Mammal Society–No. 30 D. M. STODDART, D. M. STODDART Two pathological conditions in the Muntjac deer (Muntiacus reevesi)Search for more papers by this authorH. S. MIDDLETON, H. S. MIDDLETON Dept. of Natural History, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Jordon Well, Coventry.Search for more papers by this author D. M. STODDART, D. M. STODDART Two pathological conditions in the Muntjac deer (Muntiacus reevesi)Search for more papers by this authorH. S. MIDDLETON, H. S. MIDDLETON Dept. of Natural History, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Jordon Well, Coventry.Search for more papers by this author First published: June 1975 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1975.tb03196.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume176, Issue2June 1975Pages 271-274 RelatedInformation

The site whose excavation is here recorded is a small kite-shaped enclosure all but obliterated by ploughing. It is situated (ST (179) 942197; 6-inch sheet ST 91 NW) at the southern tip of a spur known as Berwick Down 1 mile north of the village of Tollard Royal on the borders of Wiltshire and Dorset. It is surrounded on its south or downhill side by a semi-circular bank and ditch. The locality has been recently described briefly by H. C. Bowen and P. Fowler whose plan (1966, 46–8, fig. 2) is here reproduced (fig. 2). The other two sites occupying the 16 acres of the spur comprise:(1) An Iron Age settlement to the north consisting of a concentration of unenclosed pits, a large round house demarcated by a pennanular palisade groove and two cross-dykes.(2) A circular enclosure 2½ acres in extent containing Romano-British hut platforms and crossed in its southern sector by a modern fence. To the north of this fence the earthworks have never been ploughed and are in a state of preservation, only too rarely found in southern England. To the south of the fence the downland has been heavily ploughed over a number of years.The earthworks of the kite-shaped enclosure had become so degraded that in 1962 the Ministry of Public Building and Works initiated a trial excavation under the direction of Mr E. Greenfield. With the assistance of Miss V. Russell, Mr Greenfield covered the area with a 10 foot grid of test-holes which were expanded into trenches when required. In 1965 the site was put down to grass and the earthworks planned in the spring by members of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, by which time the bank and ditch of the kite-shaped enclosure were virtually invisible. In August and September of that year the interior of the enclosure was completely stripped by the author on behalf of the Ministry of Public Building and Works.

Mr. Tetley, who died on September 26, 1944, had been working on various British Mammals, and the notes and measurements detailed below were being prepared for publication at the time of his death. It is considered that the data will be of value to future workers and should, therefore, be put on record, especially as some of the specimens concerned are no longer available for examination, having been lost as a result of enemy action.