Caenaugochlora (Caenaugochlora) cyanella (Halictinae: Augochlorini), new species, is described and figured from females collected in northwestern Honduras. The new species, although belonging to the subgenus Caenaugochlora Michener, superficially resembles C. donnae Engel of the subgenus Ctenaugochlora Eickwort, both having a strong metallic blue coloration and distinctly tuberculate subpleural Signum. Caenaugochlora cyanella, however, lacks the densely pectinate inner metatibial spur, strongly and completely striate basal area of the propodeum, densely punctured integument, and other features of Ctenaugochlora species. The species is distinguished from its congeners and characters for its recognition provided.

Pseudocorax laevis (Leriche) is a Late Cretaceous anacoracid shark. Here, I describe the first associated teeth of P. laevis (along with unidentifiable fragments of calcified cartilage) from the Mooreville Chalk of Alabama. Although the specimen consists only of four teeth, morphological variation observed confirms the presence of heterodonty in the dentition of this taxon.

A high speed (1000 frame/s) video segment, 0.367 seconds long, showing a territorial male Pachydiplax longipennis dragonfly responding in the field to a challenge from a conspecific male, reveals that the defender used a high rate yaw-turn to position itself to drive off the challenger. In-phase flapping of the fore and hind wings was used during the yaw turn and in the following pursuit of the challenger. During the right yawing turn, the dragonfly flapped its right wings to a more negative stroke amplitude than its left wings on the first two downstrokes (1^st downstroke: -65° right wing, -45° left wing; 2nd downstroke: -90°right wing, -50°left wing). Upstroke amplitudes were the same for both wings throughout the yaw turn. The 135° yaw turn was executed, in three wing beats (0.085 s) and in about 6/10ths of a body length of horizontal travel, at an average yaw rate of 1590%., and a peak turn rate of 3000%. This rapid yawing rotation was accompanied by a significant deceleration in flight path speed, which dropped from 30 to 7 body lengths per second (1.1 m/s to 0.3 m/s) as the dragonfly yawed through 90°in the first half of the yaw turn. The wingbeat frequency dropped from 41.7 Hz at the beginning of the yaw turn to 33.3 Hz at the end. The horizontal and vertical flight velocity components both reached zero near the completion of the yaw turn, during the upstroke portion of the third wing beat. Within 1/10th of a second after completing the yaw turn, the defender had reached speeds of 8 body lengths per second (0.3 m/s) upward and 14 body lengths per second (0.55 m/s) horizontally, and was accelerating along its flight path at approximately 150 body lengths per second² (5.5 m/s²) in its pursuit of the challenger.

Milnesium alabamae nov. sp. is a new species of tardigrade described from Alabama, USA. This unique tardigrade of order Apochela and family Milnesiidae is characterized by its visibly punctuated cuticle, short, narrow buccal tube, and long primary branch of the claws without accessory points. The buccal tube appears to be only half the length of the signature species Milnesium tardigradum for animals of similar body length. The specimens add data to the questions of tardigrade distribution and evolution.

Ochrostylon thompsonii, a member of the golden-brown algal order Chromulinales, is described from North America (Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, Kansas). Each organism consists of a basal disk and an elastic stalk at the end of which sits the markedly dorsoventral protoplast. The strongly concave heteroflagellate cell contains a single plastid and contractile vacuoles. The cell further contains a large chrysolaminarin (leucosin) droplet and numerous small droplets.

Two new species of Old World cleptoparasitic bees are described and figured from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, both of the genus Ammobates Latreille (Nomadinae: Ammobatini). Ammobates androsthenes Engel, new species (United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia), and A. arsinoe Engel, new species (Egypt), are distinguished from their congeners.

HMDS (hexamethyldisilazane) may be used to replace the critical point drying step in sample preparation of tardigrades for SEM imaging. Previous procedures required a Critical Point Drying apparatus or machine to achieve the temperature/pressure combination to completely dehydrate a small specimen for SEM work. Now a simple bath in HMDS brings the specimens to the same state of dehydration without special equipment. Results are equal to the previous method.

The Champion Shell Bed, the lowest defined lithostratigraphic unit of the Kiowa Formation that conformably overlies the Cheyenne Sandstone, is exposed near Belvidere in Kiowa County, south-central Kansas. The Champion Shell represents the earliest marine deposit that formed in the region as the Western Interior Sea advanced northward into the Midwest during the latter part of the Early Cretaceous (Upper Albian). Although invertebrate remains are abundant, the shell bed also contains the minute teeth of sharks and bony fish. The Champion Shell Bed provides the first records of marine vertebrate species from the Early Cretaceous of Kansas following a long hiatus of marine deposition extending back to the Upper Permian.

The first fossil snakefly from the Neogene of North America (mid-Miocene of Nevada) is described and figured. Agulla mineralensis Engel, new species, is represented by an isolated hind wing and is more similar to modern Nearctic snakeflies in venation than to most Old World species in contrast to some of the Paleogene species which seem to represent a different faunal composition.

Fragments of a bone described here as the probable rib of a large plesiosaur were recovered from the lowest septarian concretion zone in the Blue Hill Shale Member (Middle Turonian) of the Carlile Formation in southwestern Mitchell County, Kansas. If this identification is correct, the specimen represents the first documented occurrence of plesiosaur remains in the Blue Hill Shale and adds to the poorly known vertebrate fauna from this member. The rib, however, is non-diagnostic other than its large size, and could represent either a large elasmosaur or a pliosaur such as Brachauchenius lucasi.