Authorships within the classification.-With few exceptions, the authorship of taxa has been verified by examination of the original work. Where that was not possible, primary literature was employed. The intent was to assign authorship as accurately as possible. For example, taxa named within the volume by Lőrenthey & Beurlen (1929) are frequently cited as having been authored by both; however, Lőrenthey was the author of most of the genera and species and the authorship herein is cited as Lőrenthey in Lőrenthey & Beurlen. Determining the correct publication and date of publication, also presented challenges in several cases. The overarching principle was to assign as accurate a date of publication of taxa as possible while, at the same time, permitting recognition of the appropriate title for bibliographic purposes. For example, many of the taxa described by J. D. Dana are often attributed to his massive two-volume work, "

Although the Upper Jurassic lithographic limestones of Franconia and Swabia belong to the worldwide most famous fossil sites ('Fossil Lagerstätten'), a detailed biostratigraphical analysis was missing. Often the various fossiliferous localities, distributed over an area of several hundreds of square kilometres, were summarized as 'Solnhofen', and an early Tithonian age was traditionally assumed for most of them, with few exceptions. This is the first comprehensive attempt for a high-resolution biostratigraphy based on ammonite biohorizons. The different ages of laminated limestones obtained by this method, ranging from the Kimmeridgian Pseudomutabilis Zone to the Tithonian Ciliata Zone -a duration of ca. 4 Ma -provide a basis for future high time-resolution correlations, environmental reconstructions, and deposition-modelling.

A remarkable specimen of Mesolimulus from the Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) of Nusplingen, Germany, preserves the musculature of the prosoma and associated microbes in three dimensions in calcium phosphate (apatite). The musculature of Mesolimulus conforms closely to that of modern horseshoe crabs. Associated with the muscles are patches of mineralized biofilm with spiral and coccoid forms. This discovery emphasizes the potential of soft-bodied fossils as a source for increasing our knowledge of the diversity of fossil microbes in particular settings.

No abstract

Although the calcitic hard parts of belemnites (extinct Coleoidea) are very abundant fossils, their soft parts are hardly known and their mode of life is debated. New fossils of the Jurassic belemnitid Acanthoteuthis provided supplementary anatomical data on the fins, nuchal cartilage, collar complex, statoliths, hyponome and radula. These data yielded evidence of their pelagic habitat, their nektonic habit and high swimming velocities. The new morphological characters were included in a cladistic analysis, which confirms the position of the Belemnitida in the stem of Decabrachia (Decapodiformes).