Three new species of Turbo (Turbo (Turbo) hosodai sp. nov., T. (Marmarostomo) yoshiharuyabei sp. nov. and T. (M.?) sanoi sp. nov.) are described herein from the middle Miocene Ena Limestone within the pale green tuffaceous sandstone of the Sakurada Formation, Yugashima Group in Matsuzaki-cho of the Izu Peninsula, Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan. This suggests there was a diverse Turbo (Marmarostomo) assemblage in the tropical West Pacific Ocean after its first appearance in the Oligocene—Miocene.

An isolated tooth specimen from the Lower Cretaceous Kanmon Group in Kyushu Island, south-western Japan was initially identified as a hadrosaurid. It is reidentified herein as a neoceratopsian tooth based on the presence of a wide and prominent primary ridge on the crown, a shallow indentation on the right side of the primary ridge in non-occlusal view, and a horizontally oriented cingulum at the base of the crown. The poorly developed cingulum and shallow indentation suggest that it does not pertain to a ceratopsid, but is only referable to a basal neoceratopsian. This represents the first basal neoceratopsian specimen from the Lower Cretaceous of Kyushu Island.

Two specimens of fossil juvenile gray whale from the sea bottom between Taiwan and the Penghu Islands are Quaternary in age, and probably early Holocene, no older than 11–12 ka. Both specimens preserve the posterior portion of the skull from the occipital condyles to the broken frontals; the earbones are missing. A key diagnostic feature of eschrichtiids, paired tuberosities on the supraoccipital, occurs in both specimens. Because of incompleteness and differences with the living gray whale, the fossils are designated as Eschrichtius sp. rather than Eschrichtius robustus. This report of fossil gray whales is the first from Taiwan. The fossils expand the known range of Quaternary gray whales, and this occurrence of juveniles is consistent with a possible paleo-breeding- or nursery range.

This paper describes a new actinocerid cephalopod fauna from the western part of the Shan Plateau in Myanmar (Sibumasu Block), and discusses its significance. The cephalopod fossils are preserved in shallow marine limestones of the Wunbye Formation (Pindaya Group) and its equivalent strata. The fauna consists of Ordosoceras theini sp. nov. (Floian or Dapingian, late Early or early Middle Ordovician age), Armenoceras myanmarense sp. nov. (Darriwilian, late Middle Ordovician), Paratunkuskoceras sp. (Darriwilian), and Wutinoceras moeseini (Floian, late Early Ordovician). The presence of Ordosoceras, which was previously known only in the North China Block, and specific characters in the actinocerid fauna of Sibumasu indicate a strong linkage with that of North China during Early—Middle Ordovician time; in contrast, Sibumasu's affinity to the coeval Australian fauna is less definable. It is possible that an actinocerid faunal exchange took place between North China and Sibumasu over the shelf sea environment open to the Prototethys Ocean but this did not happen to the inland seas of Australian Gondwana during the period.

Fossil ostracods are a useful tool for identifying tsunamigenic sediments. However, the behavior of ostracod shells within the bottom tsunami sediments in Recent river mouths and estuaries is poorly understood. In this study, we analyzed bottom sediments and ostracod specimens taken from sites within the Khlong Thom River and sites adjacent to the Malacca Strait along the Malay Peninsula during three intervals—pre-tsunami, four months after the tsunami, and post-tsunami—to determine the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the bottom sediments in the river mouths and estuaries. The broad distribution of the terrigenous plant material-bearing sediments in the Malacca Strait and the southern part of river mouth areas after the tsunami indicates that the sediments and the suspended materials deposited on bottoms were preserved for four months after the tsunami. However, no plant debris was recorded in the Malacca Strait, the southern part of the river mouth (RM), or junction areas between the river mouth and the estuary in 2008, suggesting that they had dispersed from the bottom during the three years and eight months after the tsunami. Of the bottom sediments taken four months after the tsunami, a few containing no plant debris were recorded in the northern and middle parts of RM, characterized by no ostracods or an abundance of adult and late juvenile instar specimens of Keijella reticulata. Based on these observations, we believe that small materials, such as plant debris and early juvenile instar ostracods, were transported from the bottom after the tsunami by the ordinary current. Previous investigations have captured changes in the abundance and density of meiofauna within a few days of a tsunami; therefore, the existence of some changes in ostracods that were able to recover during the four months may be considered, although there was no change in ostracod biofacies caused by the tsunami in the study area.