Here is provided the first description of Pleistocene lizards recovered from five caves (Baikong, Juyuan, Queque, Sanhe, and Zhiren) in Chongzuo, Zuo River area of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, southern China. Lizard remains reported here come from faunas that include Gigantopithecus blacki or Homo sapiens dating from the Early to Late Pleistocene with age-range estimates from 2.0Ma to 111ka. The recovery of agamids (Agamidae), skinks (Scincidae), a large species of Gekko, and smaller forms of gekkonids (Gekkonidae) is of interest in that the diversity of lizards for the caves is high given the extremely small sample size from the deposits. The description of cf. Draco reported here is the first indication of the possible occurrence of this genus in the Pleistocene record. Southern China and the adjacent territories in Vietnam and Laos have a diverse lizard fauna today. Cave deposits with established chronologies in the local karst regions such as recovered in Chongzuo, can help record the diversity within the local lizard community through time. Although the fossil lizards reported here appear to represent mammalian prey remains (highly fragmented), caves that contain owl roost pellet deposits might represent a more diverse squamate community with the additional advantage of having specimens that are not as fragmented. Because a Pleistocene-age lizard record does occur in the caves reported here, in all likelihood equivalent deposits should occur in the numerous caves throughout southern China and Southeast Asia.

This article explores the globalization of U. S. Major League Baseball (MLB), measured by the participation of foreign-born players in the sport from 1876 to 2005. Data show that the number of non-native athletes has been increasing since the end of World War II, suggesting that MLB is becoming a more globalized organization. An investigation at regional and country levels reveals that most foreign participants in the 1990s and early 21st century are from Latin America, especially the Dominican Republic. In contrast, most African, European, and Asian countries have shown little sign of participation. This implies that the global reach of MLB is limited. An empirical study of 2005 data suggests that prosperous countries, neighboring countries, or countries having a close political relationship with the U. S. tend to provide more athletes to MLB. In other words, the globalization of MLB is reliant on America's economic, cultural, and geographic proximity to the rest of the world.

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The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) provides federally-backed insurance for properties in Special Flood Hazard Areas, yet many property owners do not enroll in the program. I compared flood losses and flood insurance enrollment for three Tennessee communities: Chattanooga, Elizabethton and Pigeon Forge, to investigate the relationship between flooding and NFIP enrollment. Normalized flood losses and insurance purchases were cross-correlated using lags of zero through nine years to investigate the relationship between flood losses in one year and NFIP enrollment in subsequent years. The correlation between flood losses and NFIP enrollment is significant (r = 0.39 and 0.42 respectively, p<0.05) in the year in which flood losses occurred for Chattanooga and Elizabethton. In Pigeon Forge, flood losses correlate to NFIP enrollment in the following year (r=0.43, p=0.02).

We present the first fossil record of Procyon cancrivorus (Cuvier, 1798) for Argentina. Specimen PVE-F 44 (first lower molar) was exhumed from levels assignable to the Late Pleistocene (Lujanian) in the coastal cliffs of the Bermejo river in the vicinity of Villa Escolar, Formosa (26°36'S, 58°40 W). This is also the first South American record of Procyon with accurate stratigraphic provenance, since previous records from Brazil lack stratigraphic context. Procyonids are represented in South America by five living genera (Bassaricyon Allen, Nasuella Hollister, Potos Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier, Procyon Storr and Nasua Storr). Of these, only Procyon and Nasua have paleontological records (Late Pleistocene-Holocene) in Brazil, Uruguay and Bolivia. The results of geometric and traditional morphometric analyses comparing specimen PVE-F 44 with the two known Procyon species (P. cancrivorus and P. lotor) indicates the specimen belongs to the South American species P. cancrivorus. In addition, the associated palaeofauna is composed by intertropical (e.g., Holmesina paulacoutoi) and pampean-patagonian elements (e.g., Megatherium, Toxodon, Glyptodon, Pampatherium typum).

Worldwide, recognition of the growing risk faced by communities in many countries from natural hazard events has stimulated interest in promoting people's capacity to co-exist with often beneficial, but occasionally hazardous, natural processes by encouraging the adoption of preparedness measures. Starting from recognition that levels of hazard preparedness are generally low, this paper examines how people's decisions about hazard mitigation derive from how they interpret the hazards, their relationship with the hazards and the sources of information about hazards. It describes how interpretive processes at the person (outcome expectancy), community (community participation and collective efficacy) and societal (empowerment and trust) level interact to predict levels of hazard preparedness. The data support the argument that the effectiveness of public hazard education strategies community preparedness can be increased by integrating risk management activities with community development strategies. The cross-cultural validity of the model is discussed using data from communities in New Zealand, Indonesia and Japan. Testing the model across countries and hazards (e.g. earthquakes, volcanic hazards) supports its all-hazards and cross-cultural applicability. The theoretical (e.g. identifying the degree to which the processes that underpin how people respond to hazard threats are culturally equivalent) and practical (e.g. providing a common basis for collaborative learning and research between countries and providing risk management agencies in different cultures with access to a wider range of risk management options) implications of the cross-cultural equivalence of the model are discussed.

The palaeodiet of seven bovids from Makapansgat Limeworks Cave are analysed using dental mesowear. Results suggest that Tragelaphus pricei had a highly attritional diet and was thus a browser. Tragelaphus sp. aff. T. angasii and Aepyceros sp. were also browsers, having diets similar in texture to the extant mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). Gazella vanhoepeni had an intermediate attrition-abrasion wear signal and groups most closely with extant mixed feeders. Redunca darti and Makapania broomi are at the abrasion end of the wear continuum and cluster with living grazers, such as the hippotragines and reduncines. Parmularius braini had a highly abrasive diet similar to extreme grazers like the American bison (Bison bison) and topi (Damaliscus lunatus). The bovid mesowear data were compared to previous palaeodietary studies using taxonomic uniformitarianism, ecomorphology (hypsodonty), and stable carbon isotopes on the same Makapansgat taxa. This comparison showed that the mesowear results are most closely in-line with the isotope data, both of which are non-genetic signals that reflect diet during an extended portion of an animal's life.

Dire wolves are considered to be one of the most common and widespread large carnivores in Pleistocene America1, yet relatively little is known about their evolution or extinction. Here, to reconstruct the evolutionary history of dire wolves, we sequenced five genomes from sub-fossil remains dating from 13,000 to more than 50,000 years ago. Our results indicate that although they were similar morphologically to the extant grey wolf, dire wolves were a highly divergent lineage that split from living canids around 5.7 million years ago. In contrast to numerous examples of hybridization across Canidae2,3, there is no evidence for gene flow between dire wolves and either North American grey wolves or coyotes. This suggests that dire wolves evolved in isolation from the Pleistocene ancestors of these species. Our results also support an early New World origin of dire wolves, while the ancestors of grey wolves, coyotes and dholes evolved in Eurasia and colonized North America only relatively recently.

The Great American Biotic Interchange is considered to be a punctuated process, primarily occurring during four major pulses that began approximately 2.5 Ma. Central America and southeastern Mexico have a poor fossil record of this dynamic faunal history due to tropical climates. Exploration of submerged caves in the Yucatán, particularly the natural trap Hoyo Negro, is exposing a rich and remarkably well-preserved late Pleistocene fauna. Radiometric dates on megafauna range from approximately 38 400-12 850 cal BP, and extinct species include the ursid Arctotherium wingei and canid Protocyon troglodytes. Both genera were previously thought to be indigenous to and confined to South America and appear to represent an instance of large placental mammals, descended from North American progenitors, migrating back north across the Panama Isthmus. This discovery expands the distribution of these carnivorans greater than 2000 km outside South America. Their presence along with a diverse sloth assemblage suggests a more complex history of these organisms in Middle America. We suggest that landscape and ecological changes caused by latest Pleistocene glaciation supported an interchange pulse that included A. wingei, P. troglodytes and Homo sapiens.

The limb skeleton of tapirs (Perissodactyla: Tapirus spp.) was traditionally thought to exhibit morphological variation only as a result of changes in body size. Here, we test whether forelimb variation exhibited by Tapirus is solely an artefact of size fluctuations through the tapir fossil record or whether it is influenced by habitat differences. We investigated the forelimb osteology of 12 species of Tapirus using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics on laser surface scans. Aligned shape coordinates were regressed against intrinsic bone size to account for allometry. Taxa of equivalent body mass exhibited significant differences in size-corrected bone shape. Stable carbon isotope values were averaged per species as a proxy for habitat density. Multivariate regressions of the humerus, pisiform, cuneiform, unciform, third and fourth metacarpals revealed no significant influence of size on shape. The lateral carpals (pisiform, cuneiform, unciform) demonstrated variation across the habitat density gradient. Observed variation is likely driven by species in the extinct subgenus Helicotapirus tapirs, which inhabited drier, more open woodland than modern taxa. We conclude that tapir forelimb variation is not exclusively an artefact of body size, with lateral wrist bones displaying notable differences across a habitat density gradient, beyond that resulting from size and phylogenetic effects.