Little is known about roost-site characteristics of the pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus) in the Red Hills region of Kansas and Oklahoma. The species is listed as a Species in Need of Conservation within the state of Kansas. We investigated diurnal roost characteristics of the pallid bat during two summers in the Red Hills region of Kansas and Oklahoma. Mist nets were used to capture bats within three 314-ha study sites. Radio transmitters were attached to 10 pallid bats and bats were tracked daily. Physical characteristics of 11 pallid bat roosts were recorded. Two of the 10 pallid bats radioed were females, one of which was tracked to a suspected maternity roost. The largest roost observed was a bachelor colony of 10 individuals. Most roosts (n = 8) were in vertical crevices, but pallid bats also used vertical or horizontal crevices or exfoliated cliff faces. Pallid bats roosted on cliff faces with a westerly aspect (mean = 285° ± 51.3° s). Lengths of roosting crevices ranged from 0.3 m to 3.2 m and approximate widths ranged from 3 cm to 20 cm. Roost heights above talus piles ranged from 0 m to 13 m. Most roost sites (n = 8) had no surrounding tree canopy cover. Distances from netting locations to roosts ranged from 120 m to 1200 m. Knowledge of roost sites used by pallid bats in the Red Hills could aid in management to protect habitat for this species as developments (e.g., wind turbines and electrical transmission lines), woody encroachment by eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) and related control measures, and other activities intersect this species' habitat.

We reviewed historical patterns in distribution and investigated dietary habits of a relict population of cardinal shiner (Luxilus cardinalis) in southeastern Kansas. Historical (pre-1980) collections of cardinal shiner ranged throughout portions of the upper Neosho and Verdigris basins, and contemporary collections (post-1980) documented the species in many of the same locations. Reduction in cardinal shiner range has apparently occurred in the Neosho River basin just downstream of John Redmond Reservoir. Diets of 95 individuals collected from five sites in the Cottonwood River drainage of the upper Neosho River basin during summer of 2010 included primarily aquatic invertebrates (occurred in 93.7% of individuals, constituted 29.3% of diet), followed by terrestrial invertebrates (76.8%, 9.5%) and algae and plant material (70.5%, 4.8%). Diet diversity increased as cardinal shiner size increased, so that aquatic invertebrates constituted the majority of the diet among cardinal shiner >80 mm total length. Although previous studies conducted in Oklahoma suggested cardinal shiner consumes nearly equal amounts of invertebrates and plant material, our findings suggest the relict population in Kansas consumes primarily aquatic invertebrates and occasionally terrestrial invertebrates and plant material.

The Greenhorn Limestone was deposited in the middle of the Upper Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway of North America. Based on materials collected from southeastern Nebraska, we report an assemblage of fossil marine fishes from the upper half (Jetmore and Pfeifer members) of the formation that represents the peak transgressive phase of the seaway. The ichthyofauna consists of at least ten taxa, including at least six chondrichthyans and four osteichthyans. The fish assemblage is small but includes durophagous, large predaceous, and medium-sized opportunistic sharks as well as small, medium-sized, and large bony fishes.

EDITOR'S NOTES: The following is a translation of: Goldfuss, A. 1845. Der Schädelbau des Mosasaurus, durch Beschreibung einer neuen Art dieser Gattung erläutert. Nova Acta Academa Ceasar Leopoldino-Carolinae Germanicae Natura Curiosorum 21: 1–28. The paper represents the first detailed description of a mosasaur skull. Although prepared and described in Germany, the remains came from the Late Cretaceous rocks along the Missouri River in South Dakota. The missing anterior portion (snout) of the skull and other fragments had been collected earlier by a trapper and mistakenly described by Dr. Richard Harlan (1834) as part of the skull of Ichthyosaurus missouriensis. The remains subsequently disappeared and were thought to be lost, but the snout was recently relocated in the National Museum of Natural History in Paris by Caldwell and Bell (2005). Prince Maximilian zu Wied acquired the rest of the specimen during his travels in North America in 1832–1834 and shipped it back to Germany. There Dr. Georg August Goldfuss (1782–1848; Fig. 1) spent nearly eight years meticulously removing the bones from the surrounding limestone concretion. At the time of publication, other scientists were certain that the Harlan specimen was actually part of the Goldfuss Mosasaurus (see Von Meyer, 1845).

His description and actual sized, highly detailed plates include many of the features later claimed as discoveries by Cope and Marsh, including “the parietal and jugal arches, the pterygoids and vomers, the position of the quadrate and the presence of sclerotic plates” around the eye (Williston 1898. p. 85; see also Russell 1967, Everhart 2005). Unfortunately, although Harlan had been terribly wrong about his identification of the original fragments of the specimen, his species name (missouriensis) has priority over Goldfuss' choice of Maximiliana, in honoring his benefactor.

The paper was translated from the original German by Dr. Robert T. Firestone (ret.), University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages with assistance of the editor and Earl Manning, then at Tulane University. Most recently the context of the translation was improved by Sven Sachs (Engelskirchen, Germany).

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article was written by Dr. John Dempster Parker (1831–1909), co-founder and first Secretary of the Kansas Academy of Science, and published in the Kansas City Review of Science and Industry in 1884. Parker taught at Lincoln College in 1867-69 as the Professor of Natural Science and Mathematics. At the time, the college was small, and his courses included Greek, Physics, Analytical Geometry and Surveying. One of Prof. Parker's early scientific accomplishments was the 1868 publication of an article in the American Journal of Science and Arts about the April, 1867 earthquake in Kansas. He resigned his position in August, 1869, less than a year after the school became Washburn College and later served as pastor of a Congregational church at Burlington, Kansas. In 1871, he was appointed by the Governor to be Superintendent of the Kansas Institution for the Blind in Wyandotte (now Kansas City), Kansas, and worked there four years. Following that, he was a city missionary for seven years in Kansas City.

In researching this article, I discovered that the paper published in the Kansas City Review had actually been written earlier as a letter to Dr. A.H. Thompson of Topeka, then the 6^th President of the Kansas Academy of Science. It was read verbatim on November 21, 1883 at the 16th Annual Meeting of the KAS in Topeka as part of Thompson's speech as the retiring president of the KAS, and subsequently published in the Transactions in 1884. At the time the letter was written, then Captain Parker, U.S. Army, was serving as Post Chaplain at Fort McKavitt, near Menard, Texas. He was re-assigned to Fort Hays in 1884 and Fort Riley in 1885, and was the President of the KAS in 1887. Parker subsequently served as Post Chaplain at Fort Robinson in Nebraska, and Fort Stockton in San Diego, California, where he retired in 1895. He was influential in the establishment of the San Diego Normal School in 1897. Dr. Parker died at the Presidio Hospital in San Francisco on March 8, 1909, and was buried there in the National Cemetery with full military honors (Willard 1911).

The Kansas Academy of Science has re-published the organization's Constitution and By-Laws several tmies in the Transactions since 1872 for reference by the membership. The document is now also online at the KAS web site:  http://www.kansasacademyscience.org/bylaws.html