Fossil palm beetles refine upland winter temperatures in the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum.

Eocene climate and associated biotic patterns provide an analog system to understand their modern interactions. The relationship between mean annual temperatures and winter temperatures-temperature seasonality-may be an important factor in this dynamic. Fossils of frost-intolerant palms imply low Eocene temperature seasonality into high latitudes, constraining average winter temperatures there to >8 °C. However, their presence in a paleocommunity may be obscured by taphonomic and identification factors for macrofossils and pollen. We circumvented these problems by establishing the presence of obligate palm-feeding beetles (Chrysomelidae: Pachymerina) at three localities (a fourth, tentatively) in microthermal to lower mesothermal Early Eocene upland communities in Washington and British Columbia. This provides support for warmer winter Eocene climates extending northward into cooler Canadian uplands.

The Palaeorehniidae (Orthoptera, Ensifera, Zeuneropterinae), and new taxa from the early Eocene Okanagan Highlands, western North America.

We revise the subfamily Zeuneropterinae (Orthoptera, Ensifera) and treat it as the family Palaeorehniidae Zeuner stat. nov. We restore the late Eocene Palaeorehnia Cockerell from Florissant, Colorado, USA to the taxon and describe two new genera and species in it: Ypopteron nicola n. gen., n. sp. from Quilchena, British Columbia, Canada and Republicopteron douseae n. gen., n. sp. from Republic, Washington, USA. Given current knowledge, Palaeorehniidae appears intermediate between the Stenopelmatoidea and the Hagoidea (s.s.).

Intercontinental dispersal of giant thermophilic ants across the Arctic during early Eocene hyperthermals.

Early Eocene land bridges allowed numerous plant and animal species to cross between Europe and North America via the Arctic. While many species suited to prevailing cool Arctic climates would have been able to cross throughout much of this period, others would have found dispersal opportunities only during limited intervals when their requirements for higher temperatures were met. Here, we present Titanomyrma lubei gen. et sp. nov. from Wyoming, USA, a new giant (greater than 5 cm long) formiciine ant from the early Eocene (approx. 49.5 Ma) Green River Formation. We show that the extinct ant subfamily Formiciinae is only known from localities with an estimated mean annual temperature of about 20°C or greater, consistent with the tropical ranges of almost all of the largest living ant species. This is, to our knowledge, the first known formiciine of gigantic size in the Western Hemisphere and the first reported cross-Arctic dispersal by a thermophilic insect group. This implies intercontinental migration during one or more brief high-temperature episodes (hyperthermals) sometime between the latest Palaeocene establishment of intercontinental land connections and the presence of giant formiciines in Europe and North America by the early middle Eocene.

New Protosmylinae (Neuroptera: Osmylidae) from the early Eocene of western North America, with taxonomic remarks.

The osmylid subfamily Protosmylinae is revised based on our emended diagnosis: Petrushevskia Martynova, 1958 and Mesosmylidus Jepson et al., 2012 are excluded (both considered Osmylidae incertae sedis), and Sogjuta Martynova, 1958 is transferred to it from the Mesosmylininae. The late Eocene genus Protosmylus Krüger, 1913 is considered a junior synonym of Osmylidia Cockerell, 1908 based on a distinct apomorphy (deeply forked MA in the hind wing), syn. nov. Three new species of Osmylidia from the early Eocene of North America are described: O. donnae sp. nov. from Quilchena, O. glastrai sp. nov. from Republic, Washington, USA, and an unnamed species of Osmylidia is reported from Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park, British Columbia (all localities of the Okanagan Highlands series), and O. taliae sp. nov. from the Green River Formation of Colorado, USA.

The Cephalozygoptera, a new, extinct suborder of Odonata with new taxa from the early Eocene Okanagan Highlands, western North America.

We describe the Cephalozygoptera, a new, extinct suborder of Odonata, composed of the families Dysagrionidae and Sieblosiidae, previously assigned to the Zygoptera, and possibly the Whetwhetaksidae n. fam. The Cephalozygoptera is close to the Zygoptera, but differs most notably by distinctive head morphology. It includes 59 to 64 species in at least 19 genera and one genus-level parataxon. One species is known from the Early Cretaceous (Congqingia rhora Zhang), possibly three from the Paleocene, and the rest from the early Eocene through late Miocene. We describe new taxa from the Ypresian Okanagan Highlands of British Columbia, Canada and Washington, United States of America: 16 new species of Dysagrionidae of the existing genus Dysagrion (D. pruettae); the new genera Okanagrion (O. threadgillae, O. hobani, O. beardi, O. lochmum, O. angustum, O. dorrellae, O. liquetoalatum, O. worleyae, all new species); Okanopteryx (O. jeppesenorum, O. fraseri, O. macabeensis, all new species); Stenodiafanus (S. westersidei, new species); the new genus-level parataxon Dysagrionites (D. delinei new species, D. sp. A, D. sp. B, both new); and one new genus and species of the new family Whetwhetaksidae (Whetwhetaksa millerae).

Forensic palynology in Canada: an overview with emphasis on archaeology and anthropology.

Palynological analysis is shown from published and unpublished Canadian examples to be a useful tool in forensic investigation, although the technique is almost unknown and therefore under-utilized by forensic investigators. The techniques of pollen and spore identification and interpretation are continually improving, indicating that the potential for forensic applications is real. Focus in this paper is on an updated interpretation of palynological data that was presented during a trial involving a scientific test of oral history as part of a claim for aboriginal title to a large area of British Columbia (BC) (Delgamuukw versus the Queen). Although the original decision in British Columbia Supreme Court was decided in favor of the government defendants, an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada overturned the original decision, and established new principles and rights for aboriginal peoples.