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The generic attribution of the Plio-Pleistocene Polish moles ?Neurotrichus polonicus and ?Neurotrichus skoczeni has been questioned several times in the past. The fossil material belonging to ?Neurotrichus polonicus and ?Neurotrichus skoczeni is re-evaluated here and a new diagnosis is provided on the basis of qualitative considerations. In addition, a Geometric Morphometric analysis of the humerus has been performed including both extant and extinct Neurotrichini and Urotrichini taxa for comparison. Our results proved the unique morphology of the Polish material suggesting a distinct taxonomic state. The morphological variations evidenced by the humeral shape analysis agree with the observed qualitative differences and support a new generic allocation. The new genus Rzebikia gen. nov. is proposed for all the material previoulsly ascribed to ?Neurotrichus polonicus and ?Neurotrichus skoczeni. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to investigate human left ventricular heart morphological changes in time among 17 healthy subjects. Preliminarily, 2 patients with volumetric overload due to aortic insufficiency were added to our analyses. We propose a special strategy to compare the shape, orientation and size of cardiac cycle’s morphological trajectories in time. We used 3D data obtained by Speckle Tracking Echocardiography in order to detect semi-automated and homologous landmarks clouds as proxies of left ventricular heart morphology. An extended Geometric Morphometrics toolkit in order to distinguish between intra- and inter-individual shape variations was used. Shape of trajectories with inter-individual variation were compared under the assumption that trajectories attributes, estimated at electrophysiologically homologous times are expressions of left ventricular heart function. We found that shape analysis as commonly applied in Geometric Morphometrics studies fails in identifying a proper morpho-space to compare the shape of morphological trajectories in time. To overcome this problem, we performed a special type of Riemannian Parallel Transport, called “linear shift”. Whereas the two patients with aortic insufficiency were not differentiated in the static shape analysis from the healthy subjects, they set apart significantly in the analyses of motion trajectory’s shape and orientation. We found that in healthy subjects, the variations due to inter-individual morphological differences were not related to shape and orientation of morphological trajectories. Principal Component Analysis showed that volumetric contraction, torsion and twist are differently distributed on different axes. Moreover, global shape change appeared to be more correlated with endocardial shape change than with the epicardial one. Finally, the total shape variation occurring among different subjects was significantly larger than that observable across properly defined morphological trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seventeen extant populations of Microtus ( Terricola) savii have been investigated for correlations of first lower molar shape to climatic variables by means of geometric morphometrics, and controlling for phylogenetic inheritance. Comparative methods revealed that climatic variables and phylogeography provide a very similar contribution to variation in first lower molars morphology, whereas tooth size does not appear to be affected by climatic conditions. Climate-related changes have been recognized in the anteroconid portion of the tooth. This indicates that molar tooth variation is strongly influenced by climatic conditions, although in a complex way. Calabrian populations, often ascribed to Microtus ( Terricola) brachycercus, form a distinct cluster, in agreement with the most recent genetic analyses. © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 99, 632–647. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The observation and the quantification of asymmetry in biological structures are deeply investigated in geometric morphometrics. Patterns of asymmetry were explored in both living and fossil species. In living organisms, levels of directional and fluctuating asymmetry are informative about developmental processes and health status of the individuals. Paleontologists are primarily interested in asymmetric features introduced by the taphonomic process, as they may significantly alter the original shape of the biological remains, hampering the interpretation of morphological features which may have profound evolutionary significance. Here, we provide a new R tool that produces the numerical quantification of fluctuating and directional asymmetry and charts asymmetry directly on the specimens under study, allowing the visual inspection of the asymmetry pattern. We tested this show.asymmetry algorithm, written in the R language, on fossil and living cranial remains of the genus Homo. show.asymmetry proved successful in discriminating levels of asymmetry among sexes in Homo sapiens, to tell apart fossil from living Homo skulls, to map effectively taphonomic distortion directly on the fossil skulls, and to provide evidence that digital restoration obliterates natural asymmetry to unnaturally low levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are errors in the author affiliations. The correct affiliations are as follows: Silvia Castiglione SP 1 sp , Carmela Serio SP 1 sp , Davide Tamagnini SP 2 sp , Marina Melchionna SP 1 sp , Alessandro Mondanaro SP 1,3 sp , Mirko Di Febbraro SP 4 sp , Antonio Profico SP 5 sp , Paolo Piras SP 6,7 sp , Filippo Barattolo SP 1 sp , Pasquale Raia SP 1 sp 1 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, dell'Ambiente e delle Risorse, University of Naples Federico II, Napoli, Italy 2 Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie "Charles Darwin", Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy 3 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, University of Florence, Firenze, Italy 4 Dipartimento di Bioscienze e Territorio, University of Molise, Pesche, Isernia, Italy 5 Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy 6 Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale e Geotecnica, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy 7 Dipartimento di Scienze Cardiovascolari, Respiratorie, Nefrologiche, Anestesiologiche e Geriatriche, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy Reference 1 Castiglione S, Serio C, Tamagnini D, Melchionna M, Mondanaro A, Di Febbraro M, et al. (2019) A new, fast method to search for morphological convergence with shape data. [Extracted from the article]

In 1979, several specimens of Rhinocerotidae were collected from the Late Miocene deposits of the Zala Subbasin, Pannonian Basin, Western Hungary and were inventoried as Rhinoceros sp. Based on morphological and metric grounds, this material is here referred to “ Dihoplus ” megarhinus (de Christol), a species previously known only from Pliocene localities. This is the earliest record of the species in Europe. Our results support the hypothesis that the origin of “ D ”. megarhinus took place in Asia and that this species successively dispersed towards Western Europe during the end of the Miocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]