Skip to content. | Skip to navigation

Personal tools

You are here: Home

Search results

RSS Subscribe to an always-updated RSS feed.

1837 items matching your search terms.
Filter the results.
Item type



































New items since



Sort by relevance · date (newest first) · alphabetically
Inproceedings Reference The green heart of Africa, the Lomami Primer
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2024
Inproceedings Reference Evolution in the tides: unravelling adaptive strategies in Pogonus chalceus beetles
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2024
Article Reference Morphological study of the anterior dentition in Raoellidae (Mammalia, Artiodactyla), new insight on their dietary habits
Raoellidae are small artiodactyls from the Indian subcontinent closely related to stem cetaceans. They bring crucial information to understand the early phase of the land-to- water transition in Cetacea. If they are considered to be partly aquatic, the question of their dietary habits remains partly understood due to their “transitional” morphology. Raoellidae are largely documented by their cheek teeth and getting a better knowledge of their anterior dentition constitutes an additional proxy to discuss their feeding habits. In this work, we document the anterior dentition of Indohyus indirae from an unprecedented sample of in situ and isolated teeth from the locality of East Aiji-2 in the Kalakot area (Rajouri district, India). We propose identification criteria for upper and lower incisors and canines in raoellids. Based on CT scan data, virtual reconstruction of in situ dentition, and identification of the isolated incisors and canines, we reconstruct a composite anterior dentition of Indohyus supported by the correspondence of wear facets between upper and lower teeth. This constitutes the first attempt at reconstruction of the anterior dentition of a raoellid. We show that the upper incisors are caniniform and very similar morphologically, whereas the lower incisors are pointed but remain incisiform and quite different from one another. We also describe noticeable intraspecific variation, at the level of upper canines, suggesting a potential sexual dimorphism in this species. Upper and lower incisors are recurved, with the upper incisor row arranged on a widely opened arch. Taken altogether the anterior dentition forms a grasping device, allowing the animal to capture and secure food, a characteristic shared with stem cetaceans. This would mark the first step towards the carnivorous diet in these peculiar artiodactyls.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2025 OA
Article Reference Bioerosional marks in the shells of two sea turtle taxa from the middle Eocene of Belgium
This study analyses the diverse types of bioerosion marks on the shells of two sea turtle specimens from the Lutetian (middle Eocene) of Belgium. The objective is to understand the physical stressors affecting these organisms in ancient marine environments and to identify the potential factors responsible for these changes. The first specimen, the holotype of Eochelone brabantica, presents multiple erosive anomalies on its costal plates. The second individual, corresponding to Puppigerus camperi, exhibits different types of shell deviations, also of an erosive character. The combination of macroscopic and imaging techniques (i.e., CT scanning and 3D surface scanning) allow us the precise observation and identification of the different alterations. Comparative analyses suggest several external factors as potential causes of the anomalies of the two specimens (i.e., invertebrate feeding traces and trauma). This detailed examination provides specific insights into the types and causes of shell alterations in these Eocene turtles, offering a clearer understanding of their interactions in the marine ecosystem in which they lived.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2025 OA
Article Reference India as a “Noah’s Ark” before Collision with Eurasia: Palaeoenvironment and Palaeobiogeography of the Continental Early Eocene Vertebrate Fauna of Gujarat
For the past twenty years, an Indian-American-Belgian team carried out twelve seasons of collaborative fieldwork in search of vertebrates from the Cambay Formation in lignite mines of Gujarat, western India. Here is a summary of our main discoveries in the Vastan, Mangrol, and Tadkeshwar mines, including an updated overview of the whole vertebrate fauna. The fauna is around 54.5 million years old, representing tropical rainforest conditions in a coastal brackish palaeoenvironment. It includes the earliest modern mammals from the Indian subcontinent as well as endemic taxa. The most important result at the palaeobiogeographical level is the discovery of several vertebrate taxa of Gondwanan affinities, indicating that the early Eocene was a crucial period in India when Laurasian taxa with western European affinities co-existed with relict taxa from Gondwana before the actual collision of India and Eurasia. Terrestrial faunas could have dispersed to or from Europe when the Indian subcontinent came into contact, episodically, with different island blocks, such as the Kohistan-Ladakh island-arc system, along the northern margin of Neotethys Ocean.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2025 OA
Article Reference 3D models related to the publication: Morphological study of the anterior dentition in Raoellidae (Mammalia, Artiodactyla), new insight on their dietary habits
The present 3D dataset contains 3D models of new material from the middle Eocene of the Upper Subathu Formation in the Kalakot area (India), documenting the anterior dentition of the raoellid Indohyus indirae. Raoellidae are closely related to stem cetaceans and bring crucial information to understand the earliest phase of land to water transition in Cetacea.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2025 OA
Article Reference Depositional framework of the Sangkarewang and Sawahlunto Formations, Ombilin Basin, West Sumatra, Indonesia
Analyses of rock samples collected during recent fieldwork in the Ombilin Basin of west-central Sumatra, Indonesia yielded pollen data that constrain the age and depositional setting of associated plant macrofossil and vertebrate fossil-bearing units in the Sangkarewang and Sawahlunto formations. Articulated fish and plant fossils were recovered from bedding plane surfaces of fissile, laminated shales in the Sangkarewang Formation that are interpreted to have been deposited in an actively-subsiding, deep, anoxic lake. The overlying Talawi Member of the Sawahlunto Formation records stratigraphy consistent with deposition in a segue to marginal lacustrine marsh and poorly-drained paleosol settings. Interbedded carbonate mudstone / wackestone and lignitic claystone units in the basal Talawi Member preserve scattered, disarticulated fossils of fish, reptiles, an amphibian, and one mammal tooth. These beds grade into a heterolithic succession of fine-grained clastic rock, with coal interbeds likely deposited in a coastal alluvial setting. Marine influences in this interval are indicated by the nature of physical sedimentary structures in several zones, the presence of trace fossils such as Diplocraterion, Cylindrichnus and Teichichnus, and the occurrence of foraminiferal linings, dinocysts and other palynomorphs indicative of mangrove and back-mangrove settings. Palynological analysis indicates that the most probable age of the Sawahlunto Formation ranges from the middle to late Eocene, with a possible extension from the middle Eocene to the early Oligocene.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2025 OA
Article Reference Stratigraphy, paleontology, and depositional setting of the Late Eocene (Priabonian) lower Pagat Member, Tanjung Formation, in the Asem Asem Basin, South Kalimantan, Indonesia
Marine sedimentary rocks of the late Eocene Pagat Member of the Tanjung Formation in the Asem Asem Basin near Satui, Kalimantan, provide an important geological archive for understanding the paleontological evolution of southern Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) in the interval leading up the development of the Central Indo-Pacific marine biodiversity hotspot. In this paper, we describe amoderately diverse assemblage of marine invertebrates within a sedimentological and stratigraphical context. In the studied section, the Pagat Member of the Tanjung Formation records an interval of overall marine transgression and chronicles a transition from the marginal marine and continental siliciclastic succession in the underlying Tambak Member to the carbonate platform succession in the overlying Berai Formation. The lower part of the Pagat Member contains heterolithic interbedded siliciclastic sandstone and glauconitic shale, with thin bioclastic floatstone and bioclastic rudstone beds. This segues into a calcareous shale succession with common foraminiferal packstone/rudstone lenses interpreted as low-relief biostromes. A diverse trace fossil assemblage occurs primarily in a muddy/glauconitic sandstone, sandy mudstone, and bioclastic packstone/rudstone succession, constraining the depositional setting to a mid-ramp/mid to distal continental shelf setting below fair-weather wave base but above stormwave base. Each biostrome rests upon a storm-generated ravinement surface characterized by a low-diversity Glossifungites or Trypanites trace fossil assemblage. The erosional surfaces were colonized by organisms that preferred stable substrates, including larger benthic foraminifera, solitary corals, oysters, and serpulid annelid worms. The biostromes comprised islands of highmarine biodiversity on the mud-dominated Pagat coastline. Together, the biostromes analyzed in this study contained 13 genera of symbiont-bearing larger benthic foraminifera, ∼40 mollusk taxa, at least 5 brachyuran decapod genera, and 6 coral genera (Anthemiphyllia, Balanophyllia, Caryophyllia, Cycloseris, Trachyphyllia, and Trochocyathus), as well as a variety of bryozoans, serpulids, echinoids, and asterozoans. High foraminiferal and molluscan diversity, coupled with modest coral diversity, supports the hypothesis that the origin of the diverse tropical invertebrate faunas that characterize the modern Indo-Australian region may have occurred in the latest Eocene/earliest Oligocene.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2025 OA
Article Reference The upper Eocene-Oligocene carnivorous mammals from the Quercy Phosphorites (France) housed in Belgian collections
The Quercy Phosphorites Formation in France is world famous for its Eocene to Miocene faunas, especially those from the upper Eocene to lower Oligocene, the richest of all. The latter particularly helped to understand the ‘Grande Coupure’, a dramatic faunal turnover event that occurred in Europe during the Eocene-Oligocene transition. Fossils from the Quercy Phosphorites were excavated from the middle 19th century until the early 20th century in a series of sites and became subsequently dispersed over several research institutions, while often losing the temporal and geographical information in the process. In this contribution, we provide an overview and reassess the taxonomy of these barely known collections housed in three Belgian institutions: the Université de Liège, KU Leuven, and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. We focus our efforts on the carnivorous mammals (Hyaenodonta and Carnivoramorpha) and assess the stratigraphic intervals covered by each collection. These fossils are derived from upper Eocene (Priabonian), lower Oligocene (Rupelian), and upper Oligocene (Chattian) deposits in the Quercy area. The richness of the three collections (e.g., the presence of numerous postcranial elements in the Liège collection), the presence of types and figured specimens in the Leuven collection, and some identified localities in the RBINS collection make these collections of great interest for further studies on systematics and the evolution of mammals around the ‘Grande Coupure’.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2021
Article Reference Ocean acidification modifies behaviour of shelf seabed macrofauna: A laboratory study on two ecosystem engineers, Abra alba and Lanice conchilega
The feeding activity and burrow ventilation by benthic invertebrates importantly affect the biodiversity and functioning of seafloor sediments. Here we investigated how ocean acidification can modify these behavioural activities in two common and abundant macrofaunal ecosystem engineering species in temperate continental shelf communities: the white furrow shell Abra alba and the sand mason Lanice conchilega. Using time-lapse imagery and sediment porewater hydraulic signatures we show that both species adapt their behaviour in response to predicted future pH conditions (-0.3 units). During a three-week laboratory experiment, A. alba reduced the duration per feeding event when suspension and deposit feeding (by 86 and 53%, respectively), and almost completely ceased suspension feeding under reduced seawater pH in comparison to ambient seawater pH (pH ~ 8.2). This behavioural change reduces the intake of low pH water during feeding and respiration. L. conchilega increased its piston-pumping frequency by 30 and 52%, respectively, after one and two weeks of exposure to future pH conditions (-0.3 units) relative to ambient conditions. This change in irrigation activity suggests higher metabolic demands under low seawater pH, and also extended low water column pH conditions deeper into the seafloor. Because the distribution of other populations depends on the physicochemical setting by our focal species, we argue that the demonstrated behavioural plasticity will likely have cascading effects on seafloor diversity and functioning, highlighting the complexity of how ocean acidification, and climate change in general, will affect seafloor ecology.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023