Based on fossil discoveries and phylogenetic studies, an Eocene Asian origin for hystricognathous rodents and anthropoid primates has gained strong support in recent years. The two groups then invaded both Africa and South America, which promoted their evolutionary success. However, the fossil record has so far failed to constrain the nature and precise timing of these pivotal dispersal events. In Africa, given the apparent absence of hystricognaths and anthropoids in early to early middle Eocene localities, it is suggested that these mammal groups dispersed from Asia to Africa sometime during the middle Eocene. In this paper, we report the discovery of several isolated teeth of a rodent from a new vertebrate locality situated in central Tunisia (Djebel el Kébar, KEB-1), dating from the late middle Eocene (Bartonian, ~39.5 Myr). These fossils document a diminutive new species of Protophiomys (P. tunisiensis nov. sp.), a basal genus of hystricognathous rodents which is well known from several North African mammalian-bearing localities of the end of the Eocene. The teeth of P. tunisiensis display a suite of anatomical details comparable with those observed in the other species of the genus, but with a lesser degree of development. Such an apparent primitive evolutionary stage is corroborated by the greater antiquity of this Tunisian species. P. tunisiensis nov. sp. is so far the most ancient representative of hystricognaths in Africa. However, it can be expected that hystricognaths were already present on that landmass given the new data on early caviomorphs recently reported from South America (at ~41 Myr). The arrival of hystricognaths in Africa from South Asia certainly predates the depositional period of the Kébar sediments, but perhaps not by much time. 

A recently discovered, almost complete specimen of a hybodont tooth, allows us to describe as a new species, fairly common, but usually fragmentary teeth in the Navesink Formation of New Jersey: Hybodus novojerseyensis nov. sp.
Three additional taxa are also described : Heterodontus creamridgensis, Squalicorax sp. and Pseudocorax affinis which is noted for the first time in North America.
The whole elasmobranch fauna of the Early Maastrichtian localities of New Jersey is reevaluated and several generic assignments are changed in comparison to the list previously published in 1975 (Cappetta
& Case). 

The knowledge of the Anchilophini has been lately renewed by the discovery of a rather large amount of new material still largely unpublished. This new material offers the opportunity of a systematic revision of this tribe gathering those of European Eocene Equoidea which bear no mesostyle on upper check teeth and display a heavy trend to the molarization of premolars.

A cladistic analysis has made out two genera, Anchilophus (Paranchilophus included as a subgenus), characterized by a marked lophodonty and the transverse narrowness of the cheek teeth, a rather high hypsodonty, the frequent occurrence of "crochets" and "anticrochets" on the superior ones, and a rather weak molarization of the premolars, opposite to Metanchilophus n. gen. whose cheek teeth are more transversally elongated, less high, less lophodont, with cusps better distinct, enamel thicker and premolars more molarized on the whole.

Three species of Anchilophus are recognized, A. desmaresti, type species of the genus, A. (Paranchilophus) remyi and A. (Paranchilophus) jeanteli n. sp.

The genus Metanchilophus is more diversified with the species dumasi, radegondensis, gaudini (whose a new sub-species M. g. fontensis is defined), depereli, castrensis n. sp. and chaubeti n. sp.

The skull anatomy has been moreover described with several taxa; it brings to light (for all that one can generalize) that Anchilophini were light animals with a slender and elongated snout, a thin zygomatic arch, a rather developed encephalon with an advanced gyrencephaly.

The structure of the nasal opening together with the occurrence of epitympanic sinuses and the molarizing process of the premolars corroborate the attribution of this tribe to the family PalaeotheIiidae. 

The numerical importance of the Condylarths in the Cernaysian fauna is discussed. The Condylarth family, Tricuspiodontidae, is reviewed in the light of new material and its close relationships to the Phenacodontidae is suggested ; one new species is recognized : Tricuspiodon sobrinus. European Arctocyonidae are reviewed and the recentclassification of Van Valen is briefly commented on. Also,  the arctocyonine Landenodon is described for the first time in Thanetian (Late Paleocene) sediments ; two new species are proposed : T. lavocati and T. phelizoni. 

Remarkable association of a small infraorbital foramen, similar to that in recent Heterocephalus, and of a strong muscular print on the dorsal anterior part of the zygomatic plate and on the premaxillary. Several anatomical structures to be compared with those of Heterocephalus suggest relationships with this genus. Richardus supports the ancestrality of the hystricomorph character in the bathyergids 

Equus caballus antunesi, nova subspecies, was a hypsodont, slender, and rather small horse (around 141cm at the withers), with narrow hooves and protocones longer on P3/-P4/ than on M1/-M2/. It does not fit in any of the different "types" of Pleistocene caballine horses previously recognized but may be related to the horse from the Acheulean of Solana del Zamborino.
Hypsodonty, small size, slenderness, narrow hooves are all characters that can easily be related to ecological conditions. Equus caballus antunesi was probably a horse adapted to rather dry and cold conditions and to a hard ground. It does not seem related at all to the North-European Equus caballus germanicus-gallicus group. 

The first part of this study was devoted to a descriptive analysis of teeth morphologies among the vespertilionine bats. This leads now to a tentative synthesis, providing views on the systematics of the group. The results could be seen according to three distinct but closely related purposes : 1 - the sorting of the genera contents in order to conform the genera units to homogeneous taxa that could represent natural issues of evolutionary lineages ; 2 - the investigation of relationships between extant genera in order to infer the possibilities of common origin ; 3 - according to the preceeding items and to the observed evolutionary trends, a tentative phylogeny, modest and cautious. The contents of many genera are sorted : Leuconoe is removed from subgeneric to generic position, whereas Myotis becomes a subgenus of it ; the myotodont species are cleared away from the Pipistrellus genus ; Glischropus and Scotozous are synonymized within Pipistrellus ; Hypsugo is raised to the generic level ; some species previously ranged within Pipistrellus will form provisionally a collective group, Attalepharca nov. ; the Eptesicus genus is broken up, the excluded species being grouped within Nycterikaupius gen. nov. ; the Nycticeini tribe is defined again after exclusion of Otonycteris , Scotoecus, Scotophilus , and addition of Hesperoptenus ; the species la io and Pipistrellus tasmaniensis are removed to Eptesicus (n.s.) and Pipistrellus dormeri to Scotoecus. Groupings of genera are stated according to the main evolutionary trends of I1/. The relevance of these is often warranted by close morphologic similarities of other teeth. This leads to a recognition of the major evolutionary radiations which occurred in the group. The filiations schematized at the end of the work show the dental relationships observed between the extant genera, and could represent a phylogenic framework. Two major facts are to be underlined : 1- the early divergence of leuconoids ; 2 - the successives crossings to myotodonty from the nyctaloid flow. Fossil data from the literature are punctually and tentatively incorporated within phylogenic sketches. 

The late Pliocene site (MN 16) of Balaruc II (Hérault, France) has provided remains of the following amphibians and reptiles: Chelotriton pliocenicus nov. sp. and Triturus marmoratus (Salamandridae), cf. Rana (Ranidae), cf. Blanus (Amphisbaenidae), cf. Agama (Agamidae),  Gekkonidae indet., Lacerta s.l. (Lacertidae), "Ophisaurus" sp. (Anguidae), Michauxophis occitanus (Aniliidae), Erycinae indet. (Boidae), Elaphe cf. E. longissima and Malpolon sp. (Colubridae), cf. Naja (Elapidae) and Vipera sp. (Viperidae). The salamandrid Chelotriton pliocenicus and the aniliid Michauxophis occitanus constitute, up to now, the only records of these groups in the European Pliocene. The fauna is indicative of a warm, dry
subtropical climate. 

A critical review on the literature about the parataxonomy of amniote eggshells reasserts the great interest of this systematics tool for the progress of dinosaur eggshell paleontology. However, shedding light on its limits, we propose to give up the use of the basic types - morphotypes key system. 

Deux types de remaniements post mortem me paraissent caractéristiques de l'état de conservation des dents de mammifères fossiles dans les Phosphorites du Quercy :

1) Des destructions localisées d'origine biologique, sous forme de galeries de morphologie très variable creusées dans la dentine et le cément, et impliquant sans doute la participation de différents types de micro-organismes. Ces altérations se sont développées peu de temps après la mort, avant la fossilísation proprement dite et se sont rapidement arrêtées après l'enfouissement dans le sédiment phosphaté.

2) Des perturbations dans les structures de la dentine liées aux variations locales de minéralisation, provoquées par une imprégnation diffuse des zones les moins calcifiées par divers minéraux et probablement surtout de l`apatite. 

The mammalian faunas of the Paleogene of Europe and their localities are reviewed with comments on problems of European stratigraphy (epoch, stage and substage limits) and on the possibilities of faunal migrations. Radiometric dating is discussed. A stratigraphic scale for the Paleogene is presented, as well as a refined system of sequential faunal levels. 

Investigations of the Clinchfield Formation (middle Eocene, upper Bartonian) exposed at the Hardie Mine (Wilkinson County, Georgia, USA), produced 4,768 actinopterygian otoliths representing 14 taxa and increased the number of bony fishes threefold from the site. The somewhat limited richness was characterized by bonefishes, mud eels, conger eels, sea catfishes, cusk-eels, snooks, grunts, drums and croakers, and porgies. The assemblage had a relatively even distribution with Ophidiidae, Congridae, and Sciaenidae most common. Included in the otolith taxa was a new sciaenid genus and species, Eosciaena ebersolei, with unknown relationships to other Sciaenidae. The Clinchfield otoliths were compared to other middle and late Eocene in age otolith assemblages in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana utilizing percentage similarity measurements. Analysis indicated that the Clinchfield otoliths were not greatly similar or greatly unlike the Moodys Branch and Yazoo Clay otolith assemblages. However, the Clinchfield showed little relationship to the slightly older Lisbon Formation in adjacent Alabama and is postulated to be related to global climatic and plate tectonic events. Biostratigraphically, the Clinchfield otolith taxa are essentially the same as the other formations except for the Lisbon, which has at least ten unique species. Abundances of Clinchfield otolith taxa indicate a possible sub-bioprovince in the eastern Gulf Coastal Plain. The Clinchfield otoliths indicate a tropical to perhaps subtropical, soft substrate, mainly normal marine to slightly reduced salinities, inner shelf (0–20 m) paleoenvironment with indications of proximal continental coastlines. This investigation represents an initial step in addressing the immensely understudied Paleogene otolith assemblages in Georgia.
  

This paper describes the first hexanchid tooth from the Tithonian (Late Jurassic) of New Zealand. For the moment, this tooth represents the earliest representative of the fossil genus Notidanodon in the world and one of the most ancient neoselachians in the Southern Hemisphere. Despite the perfect state of preservation of the unique tooth, the species is left in open nomenclature, pending the discovery of additional specimens. Few nominal species have been assigned to the genus Notidanodon. Four from Cretaceous deposits: N. antarcti Grande & Chatterjee, 1987, Notidanodon dentatus (Woodward, 1886), Notidanodon lanceolatus (Woodward, 1886), Notidanodon pectinatus (Agassiz, 1843) and only two from Paleocene: Notidanodon brotzeni Siverson, 1995, and Notidanodon loozi (Vincent, 1876). Considering the important morphological variations observed between some of these species, it seems obvious that the genus Notidanodon is not monophyletic and will need a revision in the future. 
  

The faunal list of the mammals collected at the locality of Aumelas (Hérault, France) is revised. For the first
time this Middle Eocene locality is precisely settled in the european chronological scale of "niveaux repères", between the levels of Bouxwiller and Egerkingen, in Uppermost Lutetian.
A new Dichobunid from the site is described : Aumelasia gabineaudi n. g., n. sp. This new genus has primitive characters. and it may be in the descent of the Lower Eocene Protodichobune. 

Monsieur René Lavocat, Directeur du Laboratoire de Paléontologie des Vertébrés de la troisième section de l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, quittait le service actif en l'année 1979.
Cela fait maintenant quinze ans que fut installé à Montpellier, le laboratoire de Paléontologie des Vertébrés de l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. La décision de M. René Lavocat a été particulièrement heureuse dans ses conséquences. Il a en effet permis le développement de l'enseignement et de la recherche en Paléontologie des Vertébrés à l'Université de Montpellier où se créa un des centres importants de cette discipline, en France. Il suscita la création de nouveaux laboratoires de l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes installés dès leur origine à Montpellier, ainsi que le déplacement à Montpellier d'un Laboratoire de l'Ecole Pratique, préexistant. Ce groupe de laboratoires constitue maintenant l'Institut de Montpellier de l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.
[...] 

Several different taxa of jawed vertebrates are reported for the first time from the Devonian of south-eastern Montagne Noire, France. Besides some undeterminable fragments of placoderm fishes from the Pragian and Lower Emsian, the material from the Upper Devonian is mainly represented by Melanosteus occitanus gen. and sp. nov. (Frasnian) and Thoralodus cabrieri LEHMAN, 1952 ("Famennian"). The good state of preservation of Melanosteus allows a detailed anatomical study leading to a phylogenetic analysis of the selenosteid pachyosteomorphs. 

More than 400 paleontological type-specimens housed in the Montpellier University collections have been inventoried in this catalogue which includes charophytes, Paleozoic plants, brachiopodes, molluscs, arthropodes and vertebrates (selachians, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals). The vertebrates have been treated exhaustively in the catalogue and one can consider that it includes most of the type specimens deposited in the Montpelier II collections. 

Of the ten cricetid species from the Oligocene of Western Europe, attributed until now to the genus Eucricetodon, only four prove to be utilizable - E. atavus, E. huberi, E. praecursor, E. collatum - to which it is possible to add two forms newly described: E. huerzeleri and E. quercyi. The evolullon of the genus Pseudocricetodon is also the subject of new observations. The study of the dental morphology allows us to distinguish in these two genera three lineages beginning in the middle Oligocene:

- Lineage P. montalbenensis-P. thaleri (from Montalban to Goderet), of small size, without
increase in size.
- LineageE. atavus-E. infralactorensis (from Hoogbulsel to Estrepouy), of middle size, with a regular increase in size.
- Lineage E. huerzeleri-E. haslachense (level of Montalban to that of Estrepouy), of large size, with an increase in size.

Two other forms are equally represented in these loealitles: Heterocricetodon aff. helbengi and Melissiodon quercyi. It has been possible to attribute a precise age (zone of "Cournon") to the last species, which has been defined by Schaub (l925) from material in the Old Quercy collections. The genera Pseudocricetodon, Eucricetodon, ? "Cricetodon", Leydimys, Eumys, differentiated at the beginning of the middle Oligocene in Europe, Asia and North America, seem to derive from a common ancestral group. The place of origin of this group could be situated in Asia. 

The genus Parasteiromys AMEGHINO, 1904 is revalidated, and P. friantae sp. nov. (Hystricognathi, Erethizontidae) from Colhuehuapian (early Miocene) sediments of the southern cliff of Colhue-Huapi Lake (Province of Chubut, Argentina), is described. The molar morphology of these taxa and of living porcupines adds new elements to understand the dental evolution of the Erethizontidae, and to propose the hypothetical ancestral molar pattern for this family. This pattern does not correspond to any of the morphologies traditionally proposed as ancestral for South American hystricognathous rodents. The proposed pattern is characterized by a metaloph disconnected from the posteroloph and oriented towards the hypocone, and the third loph incompletely developed with the lingual portion homologous to the mesolophule of Baluchimyinae (Chapattimyidae) from the Miocene of Pakistan. The inferred steps of the molar evolution of erethizontids towards the pentalophodont condition, considered derived for the family, are illustrated. This study strengthens the hypothesis placing erethizontids in a basal position among rodents of the suborder Hystricognathi.

  

Two steps can be distinguished in the history of the first invasion of western and south western Europe by the arvicolines. The first step corresponds to the installation of these rodents with the immigration of Promimonys inxuliferus Kowalski, then of Mimomys stehlini Kormos and of Mimomys gracilis (Kretzoi). The second is characterized by the establishment of a geographic differentiation in the arvicoline fauna between the south of France and Spain, from where are described new species of Mimomys (Mimamys cappettai, Mimomys septimanus, Mimonys medasensis), and the rest of France, where are found only elements already known from central Europe or England (Mimomys polonicus Kowalski, Mimomys pliocaenicus F. Major, Mimomys reidi Hinton, or forms very close to the latter). This geographic differentiation, which is very certainly the consequence of the division of Europe into distinct climatic provinces, one of them being the southern province comprising at least Spain and southern France, could result from a cladogenetic evolution of Mimomys stehlini and Mimomys gracilis after their immigration. The present work is also a contribution to the search for correlations between the diverse micromammal localities of the latest Pliocene (or early Villafranchian) and of the early Quaternary of Europe.