A kogiid sperm whale from the lower Pliocene of the Northern Apennines (Italy)

We report on a new specimen of Kogiidae from S. Andrea Bagni, a Zanclean fossiliferous site of northern Italy. • This specimen consists of a partially complete cranium, one vertebra, one fragment of rib, and one tooth. • The S. Andrea Bagni kogiid is recognized as representative of a new taxon in the subfamily Kogiinae. • Association of this specimen with teeth of deep-water squaloids provides interesting palaeoecological hints

Seasonality and Sleep: A Clinical Study on Euthymic Mood Disorder Patients

Background. Research on mood disorders has progressively focused on the study of seasons and on the mood in association with them during depressive or manic episodes yet few studies have focused on the seasonal fluctuation that characterizes the patient's clinical course both during an illness episode and during euthymic periods. Methods. 113 euthymic outpatients 46 affected by major recurrent depression and 67 affected by bipolar disorder were recruited. We evaluated the impact of clinical “rhythmical” factors: seasonality, sleep disturbance, and chronotype. Patients completed the SPAQ+ questionnaire, the MEQ questionnaire, and the medical outcomes study (MOS) sleep scale. We used t-test analyses to compare differences of clinical “rhythmical” and sociodemographic variables and of differences in the assessment scales among the diagnostic groups. Results. Patients reporting a family history for mood disorders have higher fluctuations throughout seasons. Sleep disturbance is more problematic in unipolars when compared to bipolars. Conclusions. Sleep, light, and seasonality seem to be three interconnected features that lie at the basis of chronobiology that, when altered, have an important effect both on the psychopathology and on the treatment of mood disorders

A new kogiid sperm whale from northern Italy supports psychrospheric conditions in the early Pliocene Mediterranean Sea

Among living cetaceans, dwarf and pygmy sperm whales (Kogia) are the only members of the family Kogiidae, regarded as diminutive and elusive relatives of the great sperm whale Physeter. Kogiids are known as fossils by several skulls, teeth, and ear bones from Neogene deposits of the Northern Hemisphere and Peru. We report on a fossil kogiid specimen collected at Sant’Andrea Bagni (northern Italy) from Zanclean marine mudstone; these deposits also yielded a rich deep-water elasmobranch assemblage depicting the presence of Atlantic-derived psychrospheric waters. The kogiid specimen, consisting of a partial cranium, one detached tooth, one vertebra, and one fragmentary rib, is here referred to Pliokogia apenninica gen. et sp. nov. Pliokogia is mostly characterised by a long and dorsally flattened rostrum and by the presence of two well-distinct fossae on the right side of the supracranial basin, including an elongated peripheral maxillary fossa on the posterior portion of the right maxilla. Our phylogenetic analysis recovers Pliokogia as a member of the subfamily Kogiinae, which includes Kogia, Koristocetus, Nanokogia, and Praekogia. A low temporal fossa and the absence of dental enamel suggest that, like extant Kogia, Pliokogia was a suction feeder. Since living kogiids do not inhabit the Mediterranean waters, and considering that they feed on deep-water prey in open-sea areas, the association of Pliokogia with a psychrospheric elasmobranch assemblage with Atlantic affinities is noteworthy. Indeed, in early Pliocene times, the Gibraltar connection was controlled by estuarine dynamics, thus allowing the entrance of deep-water organisms (including the putative prey of Pliokogia) in the Mediterranean Basin. The subsequent abandonment of the Mediterranean Sea by kogiids might therefore be related to the definitive establishment of the present-day antiestuarine circulation at Gibraltar, which likely led to a limited deep nutrient supply and resulted in the strong depletion of most Mediterranean deep-water ecosystems

A small fossil fish fauna, rich in Chlamydoselachus teeth, from the Late Pliocene of Tuscany (Siena, central Italy)

A small elasmobranch teeth and teleost otolith assemblage from the Piacenzian-earliest Gelasian of Tuscany (Castelnuovo Berardenga Scalo, Siena province, Italy) is described. The exceptional abundance of teeth belonging to Cizlamydoselaclms lawleyi Davis, 1887 has enabled us to better define and confirm the validity of this doubtful fossil taxon.ln agreement with Davis (1887) and Ffeil ( 1983) this species appears lo differ from the living frilled shark C. anguìneus Garman, 1884 at least by its larger size. Palaeoecological inferences based on the ecology of C. anguineus together with deep water sharks such as Cellfrophorus granulosus (Bloch & Schneider, 1801) and the teleost otolith assemblage mainly characterised by macrourids and myctophids enable us to configure, in the Pìacenzian to earlìest Gelasian of Tuscany (Siena subbasin of the Siena-Radicofani Basin) an upper bathyal slope palaeoenvironment. The occurrence of Chlamydoselaclms in the Piacenzian-earliest Gelasian ofthe Mediterranean palaeo-area demonstrates the persistence of an oceanic environment not as profusely developed as during the early Zanclean (i.e. lower part of MPL 2 foraminiferal biozone; see Cigala Fulgosi, 1986, 1996)