The study reports that taxonomic work on Mongolia’s Encyrtidae began in the late 1960s. Subsequent investigations by several researchers have recorded approximately 100 genera and more than 300 species from the country. The authors nevertheless state that many regions remain insufficiently surveyed and that numerous species are likely still undiscovered.

The material examined in the study came from a joint expedition involving the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Mongolian Institute of Plant Protection Research. Field surveys were conducted across Mongolia from 2023 to 2025, covering most of the country’s territory. The primary collection methods were sweep netting and yellow pan traps.

Specimens were card-mounted or dissected and mounted on slides, generally following a method described by Noyes in 1982. Observation and measurement used a Nikon SMZ-168 stereomicroscope. Body lengths were recorded in millimetres, while other measurements were relative values obtained from a linear scale in the eyepiece of a stereozoom binocular microscope at 4.7× magnification.

Examined specimens were deposited at the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Mongolian Institute of Plant Protection Research. Helegonatopus arkhangaiensis was established from female specimens collected in Tayhar, Arkhangai, on 16 June 2024. The holotype and two paratypes share that collection data, while three additional females were collected in Bulgan, Khovd, on 22 July 2025.

Females have a body length of approximately 1.0–1.3 mm, including the ovipositor, and are generally dark brown with a faint metallic green sheen. Their ocelli form an acute triangle with an angle of about 40 degrees, all funicle segments are longer than broad, and the mid tibia is about as long as the ovipositor. The specific name refers to Arkhangai, where the type specimen was collected.

The authors identify H. arkhangaiensis as morphologically similar to H. rasnitzyni , described by Trjapitzin in 1963. The new species has an antennal clava slightly longer than funicle segments F1–F3 combined, whereas the clava of H. rasnitzyni is about as long as F1–F5 combined. Their ocellar angles also differ: approximately 40 degrees in H. arkhangaiensis and slightly less than 90 degrees in H. rasnitzyni .

The paper reports the new species from Arkhangai and Khovd, with Tayhar as its type locality. Males and hosts are unknown, leaving its biology and broader distribution unresolved. Trechnites bulgani was also described from females.

Its holotype and four paratypes were collected in Bulgan, Khovd, on 22 July 2025, and the material was divided between the two institutional collections. Females measure approximately 1.0–1.1 mm in body length, including the ovipositor. They are generally dark brown, with metallic blue reflections on the scutellum contrasting with the darker mesoscutum.

Their ocelli form an obtuse triangle with an angle of approximately 110 degrees, the notaular lines are absent, and the ovipositor is nearly as long as the mid tibia and slightly exserted. The species name refers to Bulgan, the type locality. According to the authors, T. bulgani closely resembles Trechnites alni , described by Erdös in 1957.

The two can be distinguished by the pale apices of the scape and pedicel in the new species, compared with completely dark antennae in T. alni . Another distinction is the absence of notauli in T. bulgani , while the notauli in T. alni extend about one-third across the mesoscutum. As with the other new species, no male or host is known for T. bulgani .

The available evidence concerns the morphology, collection localities and reported distribution of the female specimens, not its biological interactions. The third species examined, Psyllaephagus tamaricicola , was first described by Myartseva in 1979 from Turkmenistan and had previously been recorded from Armenia and Kazakhstan. Two females collected in Mankhan, Khovd, on 17 June 2025 established a new record for Mongolia.

These females measure approximately 1.2–1.4 mm in body length, including the ovipositor, and are dark brown with metallic green, blue-violet and golden-green sheens on different body regions. Their ocelli form an obtuse triangle with an angle of about 80 degrees. The fore coxae and fore legs are yellow, while the mid and hind coxae and hind femora are dark brown; the ovipositor is not exserted and is about 1.3 times as long as the mid tibia.

The host of P. tamaricicola remains unknown in the study. The paper therefore provides a taxonomic account of three Mongolian encyrtid species, supported by collected female specimens, morphological comparisons, measurements and images.

Subject of Research: Taxonomic identification of three Encyrtidae species collected in Mongolia, including two new species and one first country record.

Article Title: Three species of Encyrtidae ( Hymenoptera , Chalcidoidea ) from Mongolia, with descriptions of two new species

Article References: Zou, B., Liu, H., Mijidsuren, B., & Zhang, Y. (2026). Three species of Encyrtidae (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea) from Mongolia, with descriptions of two new species. ZooKeys, 1292, 373-383. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1292.187191

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1292.187191

Keywords: Encyrtidae, Mongolia, taxonomy, new species, wasp morphology, field survey, parasitic wasps, Helegonatopus, Trechnites, Psyllaephagus, Three, species

The family Pottiaceae is notoriously difficult taxonomically. Many of its members are small, morphologically reduced plants whose features have been shaped by convergent evolution in response to stressful environments, which can blur the boundaries between species. Molecular studies have further complicated matters by revealing that some traditionally recognized subfamilial and generic relationships within the family require cautious interpretation. Yet the ecological importance of these mosses is hard to overstate. Most Pottiaceae species are desiccation-tolerant, capable of recovering rapidly after rehydration, and they thrive in soil crusts, rock surfaces, gravel slopes, and disturbed open substrates. These traits make them especially relevant in Mongolia, where aridity, strong solar radiation, wind abrasion, and episodic water availability act as powerful ecological filters on the flora.

Bryological exploration on the Mongolian Plateau began in the mid-nineteenth century, when foreign missionaries and experts collected plants that included only scattered moss specimens. Systematic study of Mongolian bryophytes did not begin until the 1970s, when Abramova and Tsegmed surveyed major mountain systems such as the Khangai, Khentii, and Mongolian Altai between 1976 and 1994, publishing foundational accounts. Tsegmed provided the first national checklist in 2001, listing 27 genera and 79 species of Pottiaceae. A multinational expedition to the Gobi Altai in 2004 documented 44 species in 17 genera, and the most comprehensive national treatment, the Moss Flora of Mongolia published in 2010, recognized 24 genera and 81 taxa. Subsequent collecting has steadily added new records, underscoring that the national list remains dynamic and in need of periodic, voucher-based updating under current taxonomic concepts.

To build the revised checklist, the researchers analyzed specimens from the Herbarium of Inner Mongolia University, the Herbarium of the Botanic Garden and Research Institute, and the Herbarium of the Missouri Botanical Garden, alongside published literature. Records were included only if they offered reliable taxonomic evidence, such as a voucher specimen or published identification, and specified locality information to at least the province level. Administrative names were standardized using a controlled vocabulary, spelling variants and diacritics were corrected, and duplicate entries representing the same taxon in the same sum were merged so that each accepted taxon contributed at most one sum-level occurrence per administrative unit. To avoid artificially inflating species counts, the team used a species-unit approach in which a province or sum with records of only one variety of a species was treated as harboring the parent species for richness calculations, while the infraspecific name was retained in the checklist for taxonomic detail.

The resulting picture of taxonomic diversity is strongly long-tailed, with a few large genera dominating the flora. Didymodon is by far the most species-rich genus, with 27 species and two varieties, representing 29.3 percent of all taxa. Syntrichia follows with 12 species and one variety, and Tortula with 11 species, while Bryoerythrophyllum contributes six species. The remaining 22 genera contain only one to five taxa each. The 26 genera are arranged into four subfamilies: Timmielloideae with a single genus, Trichostomoideae with five, and Barbuloideae and Pottioideae with ten each. The authors retained a morphology-based framework for generic circumscription, keeping Timmiella within Pottiaceae even though molecular phylogenies have proposed segregating it into a separate family, in order to maintain consistency with the principal floristic treatments used for specimen identification.

Geographically, the richest provinces are Khövsgöl with 53 species, Govi-Altai with 48, and Khovd with 45, followed by Bayankhongor and Töv with 40 and 36 species respectively. But the study also reveals a striking pattern of documentary unevenness. Sampling intensity, measured as the number of verified occurrence records, varies enormously among provinces, and observed richness tracks collecting effort remarkably closely: the correlation between the two is exceptionally strong, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.961. Provinces such as Darkhan-Uul and Dundgovi are represented by very few verified records, and Orkhon and Govisumber have no verified sum-level records at all in the new database. At the sum level, the median richness is just 4.0 species, and 46 of the 160 sums contain only a single species. The richest sums are Renchinlkhümbe in Khövsgöl with 40 species, Bulgan in Khovd with 30, and Bogd in Bayankhongor, also with 30.

Occupancy patterns are strongly right-skewed at both provincial and sum levels. Nineteen species, or 20.4 percent of the flora, are found in only one province, and 23 species occur in just two or three. At the finer scale, 18 species are known from a single sum. Only a small subset of taxa is widespread, occurring in eight or more provinces. The most ubiquitous species are Bryoerythrophyllum recurvirostrum, recorded from 20 provinces and 83 sums, and Syntrichia ruralis, found in 18 provinces and 76 sums, both consistent with their broad ecological tolerance and frequent occurrence in open, disturbed, and drought-prone habitats. The authors caution that low occupancy in specimen-based datasets requires careful interpretation: a taxon recorded from a single province may be genuinely restricted, or it may simply reflect limited collection effort or the difficulty of detecting small, ephemeral, or morphologically variable plants.

The revision also reshuffles the national inventory itself. The update adds one genus, Pseudosymblepharis, and 20 taxa new to Mongolia, comprising 16 species and four varieties. Among the newly recorded species are Anoectangium aestivum, several Bryoerythrophyllum species including B. sollmanianum, Didymodon rivicola, Molendoa hornschuchiana, Oxystegus daldinianus, Pseudosymblepharis angustata, Stegonia pilifera, several Syntrichia taxa including S. calcicola and S. handelii, Timmiella crassinervis, Tortula capillaris, and two Weissia species. Each new record is anchored to examined specimens with full locality and collector details. Conversely, nine previously reported taxa were excluded from the Mongolian flora after critical reassessment, including Bryoerythrophyllum alpigenum, Pseudocrossidium revolutum, Syntrichia princeps, and Timmiella anomala, while three further names, among them Didymodon luridus, remain doubtful pending voucher confirmation.

Compared with the 2010 monograph, which recognized 24 genera and 81 taxa, the new checklist records 26 genera and 99 taxa, a substantial expansion driven by both new fieldwork and the reconciliation of synonyms and misapplied names with current taxonomic concepts. The authors emphasize that the database was assembled as a reproducible occurrence synthesis rather than a repeated collection-event dataset, so it is best used to identify survey gaps rather than for formal beta-diversity comparisons among provinces. They recommend that future work reconstruct collection-event data and apply species accumulation curves or other coverage-based approaches to determine how much additional sampling each province requires.

Beyond its administrative summaries, the checklist points to a broader environmental mosaic likely to underlie Pottiaceae diversity across Mongolia. Northern and central mountainous regions, especially around Khövsgöl and the Khangai range, combine elevational heterogeneity, contrasting slope exposures, rocky substrates, and locally buffered moisture, creating microsites for both xerophytic and montane taxa. The Gobi and drier steppe regions probably favor a different subset of species adapted to strong aridity and episodic water availability, with diversity structured by the fine-scale availability of exposed soil, gravel, rock crevices, and temporary moisture-retaining microsites. The western mountains, including the Mongolian Altai, compress multiple habitat types into small areas, potentially promoting local coexistence of cold-desert, steppe, and montane elements. The authors stress that these biogeographic interpretations should be treated as working hypotheses, since collecting intensity remains highly uneven, but the checklist now provides the standardized, voucher-anchored baseline needed to target future field surveys, integrative taxonomic revisions, biodiversity inventories, and conservation assessments across Mongolia and adjacent regions of Central Asia.

Subject of Research: Taxonomic revision and distribution of the moss family Pottiaceae in Mongolia

Article Title: A revised checklist of Pottiaceae ( Bryophyta ) in Mongolia

Article References: Enkhjargal, E., Feng, Q., Qi, Q., & Zhao, D. (2026). A revised checklist of Pottiaceae (Bryophyta) in Mongolia. PhytoKeys, 275, 191-208. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.275.197551

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/phytokeys.275.197551

Keywords: Pottiaceae, mosses, bryophytes, Mongolia, checklist, biodiversity, taxonomy, herbarium specimens, drylands, species occupancy, biogeography, PhytoKeys

The genus Sophronia, established by Hübner in 1825, currently comprises 23 described species, most of them recognizable by striking forewing patterns of white and dark fasciae. Central European representatives were treated by Elsner and colleagues in 1999, northern European species were revised by Gregersen and Karsholt in 2022, and Chinese species were partly revised by Li and Zheng in 1998. A 2019 study by Šumpich and colleagues characterized the genus, described S. salaganella from southern Siberia, made several taxonomic changes and provided an updated checklist. Yet the group remains incompletely catalogued: DNA barcoding of the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) reveals four unique Barcode Index Numbers, or BINs, that lack species names. Because sharing of BINs has not been recorded in Sophronia, these four lineages likely represent hitherto undescribed species, one of which is now formally named as S. huiagaai sp. nov.

The Altai Mountains themselves are a remarkable setting for such a discovery. The range stretches nearly 2,000 kilometers from west to east and spans about 600 kilometers, rising from grassy steppes to high rocky zones across Central Asia. Its mosaic of natural habitats and elevational zones, combined with its geographical position, makes the Altai an exceptional area with a high degree of plant and animal endemism. Around 2,000 species of higher plants are reported from the mountains, roughly 200 of them endemic. A similarly high percentage of endemism can be assumed for some insect groups, though a significant portion of the range has never been surveyed for insects, largely because access roads are absent and certain areas were overlooked by entomologists in the past.

In recent decades, research trips to the Russian Altai by Russian, Ukrainian, Finnish, Austrian and Czech lepidopterologists have resulted in the description of many Lepidoptera species, including several in the family Gelechiidae. The moth fauna of the Russian Altai is now fairly well studied, but knowledge of the other regions of the range is limited to non-existent; only scarce lepidopteran data are available from the Chinese and Kazakh parts of the mountains. The genus Sophronia mirrors this pattern precisely. Until now, two species were known from the Russian Altai, S. chilonella and S. salaganella, while no Sophronia species had ever been recorded from the Chinese or Kazakh sections of the range. The new study adds a third Altaic species, from Mongolia, and extends the known footprint of the genus across a political border that has long hindered fieldwork.

The material underpinning the description was collected by the author using portable light traps fitted with ultraviolet 8-watt, 12-volt tubes, a standard technique for attracting nocturnal micro-moths. Genitalia preparations followed established methods, and pinned specimens were photographed with a Canon 750D camera and MP-E 65-millimeter lens, while genitalia in glycerol were imaged through an Olympus CX31 stereomicroscope with a Canon EOS 200D. All photographs were stacked and edited in Helicon Focus and Adobe Photoshop, and numbering of the images allows specimens to be located in collections and databases. The terminology of genital structures follows the 2022 revision by Gregersen and Karsholt.

DNA barcoding played a central role in confirming the new species. Legs from dry specimens were processed at the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding at the University of Guelph, where sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I gene, a 609 to 628 base-pair segment of the 5-prime terminus, were obtained. Details of the sequenced specimens, including faunistic data and images, were uploaded to BOLD and are now public. The new species carries the BIN BOLD:AGD0823. Its minimum genetic distance to the nearest neighbor, the North American species S. primella, is 6.79 percent p-distance, a gap comparable in magnitude to the differences seen in the ectodermal genitalia and in the external appearance of the moths, leaving little doubt that the lineage is distinct.

Externally, S. huiagaai sp. nov. is unmistakable within the genus. The forewings appear nearly black and white, with pure white costal and dorsal fasciae, a longer stripe in the subbasal part of the dorsal fascia, a shorter stripe above it at about one third of the wing, and a group of smaller stripes in the last third. The dorsal white margin reaches the forewing apex and contains several black longitudinal stripes. The apex itself is rounded, whereas in the superficially similar S. consanguinella and S. chilonella it is distinctly pointed. The labial palpi offer a further clue: the third segment is short and straight in the new species, but long and curved in its relatives. Male forewing length ranges from 15.2 to 16.0 millimeters, with a mean of 15.8, and the single measured female reaches 15 millimeters. No variation was observed, and sexual dimorphism is not apparent.

The genitalia provide equally decisive characters. In the male, the juxta-anellar projections are very broad and long, oval structures reaching roughly two thirds of the valva length, a feature characteristic of the new species. The uncus is rectangular with an even distal margin, the gnathos is hook-shaped and regularly curved, and the valva is narrow in its basal two thirds before gradually broadening to a rounded apex that extends to the top of the uncus. The phallus is straight and comparatively broad, bearing a short internal sclerite about 2.5 times shorter than the aedeagus itself. In the female, the antrum is narrow and long with a posteriorly bifurcated sclerite, the ductus bursae and bursa copulatrix are fused with no visible distinction, and the signum is square with triangular anterior and posterior lobes that are dentate laterally. Photographs of moths and genitalia of both sexes accompany the description.

The type series was gathered at two Mongolian localities. The holotype, a male, was collected on 28 June 2023 in the Govi-Altai aimak, Biger District, about 70 kilometers southwest of Biger sum, on rocky steppe at 1,660 meters. Paratypes include eight males and one female from the same site, one of which yielded the DNA barcode NMPC-LEP-1613, and a single male from Khovd aimak, near Munkhkhairkhan at 2,070 meters, collected on 10 July 2023. All types are deposited in the National Museum of the Czech Republic. Adults fly in late June at altitudes around 1,650 meters on stony semi-desert in low-lying areas of the Mongolian Altai, but the early stages remain unknown. The species name, a noun in the genitive case, honors Altankhuyag Sosorbaram, known as Huiagaa of Ulaanbaatar, who accompanied the author while traveling in Mongolia and created excellent conditions for the fieldwork.

The study also documents S. chilonella in the Altai for the first time, from a single male collected in the Chulyshman valley of the Altai Republic in July 2019 on grassy steppe with rocks at 600 meters. The species belongs to BIN BOLD:AAJ3742, with an average intraspecific barcode distance of 0.48 percent and a minimum distance of 6.42 percent to its nearest neighbor, an unidentified Sophronia from Bulgaria. S. chilonella is Palearctic, spanning from Spain to the Far East, but records from Russia’s Asian regions had previously been restricted to Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk and Primorsky territories. Intriguingly, the Altai specimen has a wingspan of 15 millimeters, significantly larger than the roughly 12 millimeters typical of European specimens, although its genitalia fully match those of European moths. S. salaganella, meanwhile, is confirmed from additional Russian Altai localities, belonging to BIN BOLD:ADE0155 with a minimum distance of 7.43 percent to S. consanguinella. No Sophronia species is yet known from the Chinese and Kazakh parts of the mountains, a gap that invites future surveys of a range whose insect endemism is only beginning to be charted.

Subject of Research: Taxonomy and DNA barcoding of the moth genus Sophronia in the Altai Mountains

Article Title: The genus Sophronia in the Altai Mountains ( Lepidoptera , Gelechiidae )

Article References: Šumpich, J. (2025). The genus Sophronia in the Altai Mountains (Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae). Nota Lepidopterologica, 48, 137-144. https://doi.org/10.3897/nl.48.147394

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/nl.48.147394

Keywords: Sophronia, Gelechiidae, Altai Mountains, new species, DNA barcoding, Mongolia, Lepidoptera, endemism, taxonomy, BOLD, genus, Altai

Kryptobaatar dashzevegi is arguably the best-known and most carefully studied species of multituberculate, an ancient group of mammals that thrived for more than 100 million years before eventually going extinct. The skull examined in the new study, specimen PSS-MAE 101, was collected from the Upper Cretaceous Djadokhta Formation at Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia, by a joint expedition of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences and the American Museum of Natural History. The skull is nearly complete with relatively little distortion and measures just 26.0 millimeters from the tip of the snout to the occiput. The sphenoid complex is completely fused in this and other examined specimens, indicating that they were skeletally mature adults.

The specimen was scanned at the University of Texas High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography Facility in Austin. The skull was scanned in its entirety at 140 kilovolts in the coronal plane, producing 364 digital slices with dimensions of 512 by 512 pixels. The slice thickness is 0.11 millimeters, with an interslice spacing of 0.08 millimeters, creating an overlap of 0.03 millimeters between consecutive slices. The field of reconstruction for the two-dimensional slices is 21.5 millimeters, and the voxel dimensions in the X and Y planes were calculated at 0.04199 millimeters per pixel. Using the program VGStudioMax, the researchers digitally isolated the endocast from the skull, following established protocols for extracting digital endocasts from CT imagery.

The digital endocast shows qualitative and quantitative differences from a previously published description of a natural endocast of Kryptobaatar dashzevegi, specimen GI PST 8-2, described by Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska and T. E. Lancaster in 2004. In general, the natural and digital endocasts are very similar in morphology, but some anatomical features such as the circular fissure, median sulcus, and superior sagittal sinus are more defined on the natural endocast. These discrepancies are attributed to differences in preservation quality between the two specimens rather than any artifact of the scanning process or digital extraction.

The most striking differences between the two endocasts are in overall size estimates. The measured endocranial volume of the digital endocast of PSS-MAE 101 is 0.34 milliliters, which differs dramatically from the estimate of 0.84 milliliters for the natural endocast of GI PST 8-2. The discrepancy can be attributed to differences in the size of the two individuals and in the techniques used to obtain the values. The skull of PSS-MAE 101 is approximately 76 percent the length of the skull of GI PST 8-2, measuring 26 versus 34 millimeters respectively. The anteroposterior length of the endocast of PSS-MAE 101 was measured as 1.5 centimeters, whereas the length of the endocast of GI PST 8-2 is reported as 1.7 centimeters, approximately 13 percent longer.

The previous estimate for the natural endocast was obtained using an equation representing the formula for calculating 25 percent of the volume of a cylinder, with length, width, and height of the endocast as inputs. Olfactory bulb volume was estimated separately and then added to the rest of the endocast to obtain the whole endocast estimate of 0.84 milliliters. When the researchers applied the same partial-cylinder approach to the digital endocast of PSS-MAE 101, they obtained an estimate of 0.95 milliliters. The EV estimate for the natural endocast is 147 percent larger than the EV value measured for the digital endocast. Adjusting for the difference in size between the two specimens, the estimated EV for the natural endocast is 0.64 milliliters, which is 53 percent greater than the measured EV of the digital endocast. This great a difference is not likely a result of individual variation based on comparisons with extant mammals, nor is it likely a result of ontogenetic variation.

To contextualize the new brain volume measurement, the researchers estimated body mass for PSS-MAE 101 using 14 different metrics from the dentition and the humerus, based on ordinary least squares linear regressions from an analysis of body masses in small mammals. Body mass estimates range from 26.807 to 96.595 grams, with a mean of 55.013 grams. The average mass estimate compares favorably with the body mass estimate of 62.9 grams for the clearly larger specimen GI PST 8-2. Using the measured EV of the digital endocast and the average body mass estimate, the researchers calculated an encephalization quotient of 0.32 for Kryptobaatar using the equation of Eisenberg from 1981. Depending on which body mass estimate is used, the EQ ranges from 0.13 to 0.54. An EQ of 0.71 is obtained using the same equation with the previous EV estimate of the natural endocast.

The new EQ of 0.32 is significantly lower than those estimated for two other multituberculates, Ptilodus at 0.62 and Chulsanbaatar at 0.54 to 0.56. However, for both of those taxa, complete endocasts were not available to measure EV directly, and instead, models of the endocasts were constructed based on exposed dorsal surfaces, with volumes measured using displacement of water. It is unclear how the sides and ventral surfaces of those endocasts were reconstructed, so it is likely that the previously reported EQs for Chulsanbaatar and Ptilodus are also inflated. Comparing the new EQ with values calculated for other key fossil mammals with EV values measured from CT data reveals that the stem mammal Hadrocodium wui has an EQ well above that of Kryptobaatar at 0.49, while Morganucodon has an identical EQ of 0.32. The stem therian Vincelestes neuquenianus has an EQ of 0.37, and the stem marsupial Pucadelphys andinus has an identical EQ of 0.32.

If the EQ of Hadrocodium is taken as a proxy for the EQ of the ancestral crown mammal, then Kryptobaatar has a significantly lower EQ than the presumed ancestral baseline for Mammalia. This suggests a dip in relative brain size for multituberculates compared to what has been inferred for the base of crown Mammalia. The lack of a clearly defined phylogenetic position for multituberculates within Mammalia and disagreement on the precise taxonomic composition of the group raise questions about whether Multituberculata is monophyletic, both of which hamper the ability to calculate phylogenetic encephalization quotients for the group. For now, using the generalized equations of Jerison and Eisenberg remains the only option for calculating multituberculate EQs.

The researchers conclude that methodological discrepancies and shortcomings with older estimates of EV using analog techniques, along with inconsistent estimates of body mass and the lack of accounting for phylogenetic effects on EQ, warrant a reexamination of relative brain sizes for Mesozoic mammals and their closest extinct relatives. The new data from the digital endocast of Kryptobaatar dashzevegi represent a significant step forward in that effort, demonstrating just how much difference modern imaging technology can make when measuring the brains of animals that died out more than 66 million years ago.

Subject of Research: Paleoneurology of the Cretaceous multituberculate Kryptobaatar dashzevegi

Article Title: New quantitative data from a digital cranial endocast of Kryptobaatar dashzevegi (Multituberculata, Mammalia) and a new estimate of body mass

Article References: Macrini, T. E., & Rowe, T. (2026). New quantitative data from a digital cranial endocast of Kryptobaatar dashzevegi (Multituberculata, Mammalia) and a new estimate of body mass. Frontiers in Mammal Science, 5, Article 1913320. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmamm.2026.1913320

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fmamm.2026.1913320

Keywords: Kryptobaatar, multituberculata, brain evolution, computed tomography, encephalization quotient, paleontology, Cretaceous, Mongolia, quantitative, data, digital, cranial

The distinction matters because the two candidate oxidants behave very differently. Molecular oxygen, the O2 that diffuses into water and weathered rock, attacks sulfide minerals slowly, particularly under acidic conditions. Ferric iron, Fe(III), by contrast, is a far more aggressive oxidizing agent, capable of stripping electrons from pyrite at rates that can dwarf direct oxygen attack. Where Fe(III) dominates, sulfide destruction accelerates, and sulfate concentrations climb rapidly. That makes the relative contributions of the two oxidants a critical variable for anyone trying to predict, monitor, or remediate acid mine drainage. Yet in a real aquifer or river, the oxidants are invisible; only their chemical handiwork can be measured.

The research team, led by Duk-Min Kim of Sangji University together with colleagues at Korea University and Mongolian partner institutions, turned to stable isotopes to make the invisible visible. They measured the sulfur isotope composition of dissolved sulfate, expressed as δ34S, along with the oxygen isotope composition of the same sulfate, δ18O(SO4), and the oxygen and hydrogen isotope compositions of the host water itself, δ18O(H2O) and δ2H. The logic of the approach rests on a simple but powerful fact: the oxygen atoms locked into sulfate must come from somewhere, and there are only two realistic sources. They either derive from the water in which the oxidation occurred, or from molecular oxygen dissolved in that water. Ferric iron, crucially, contributes no oxygen of its own.

That asymmetry is what turns sulfate into a geochemical recorder. When molecular oxygen oxidizes pyrite, a predictable fraction of the sulfate’s oxygen budget is inherited from the O2 molecule, whose isotopic composition differs from that of water. When Fe(III) does the oxidizing, the oxygen in the resulting sulfate comes overwhelmingly from water molecules. By comparing the measured δ18O of sulfate with the measured δ18O of the surrounding water, and applying established fractionation factors from laboratory oxidation experiments, the researchers could calculate a potential fraction of pyrite oxidation attributable to Fe(III) at each sampling site. The method had been validated in experimental systems for years; what this study delivered was a systematic field application across an entire mining region.

Erdenet is an ideal natural laboratory. The Erdenetiin Ovoo deposit is a porphyry copper-molybdenum system hosted in granitoid rocks, where pyrite and other sulfides are abundant in the ore and in altered wall rocks. Mining has exposed these minerals to oxygenated water on a vast scale, and the semi-arid continental climate of northern Mongolia imposes strong seasonal controls on recharge and evaporation. The team sampled groundwater and surface water across the mining region and analyzed the full suite of sulfur, oxygen, and hydrogen isotope ratios, building a dataset that spans the hydrological and geochemical diversity of the area.

The raw results, however, did not tell a clean story on their own. The calculated Fe(III) fractions in some samples appeared implausibly low, and the researchers recognized that other geochemical processes were muddying the signal. Sulfate reduction, in which microbes consume sulfate in anoxic zones and preferentially remove the lighter sulfur isotope, can shift isotope ratios and mask the original oxidation signature. Gypsum dissolution can add sulfate to the water with an entirely different isotope composition, diluting the oxidation-derived signal. On the other side of the ledger, the precipitation of gypsum from solution can cap sulfate concentrations, while the dissolution of efflorescent salts, the crusty sulfate minerals that form on mine waste during dry periods and dissolve during wet ones, can push concentrations upward without any new sulfide oxidation at all.

The breakthrough came from treating these confounding processes explicitly rather than ignoring them. The researchers identified samples whose isotope and chemical characteristics suggested influence by sulfate reduction, gypsum dissolution, gypsum precipitation, or efflorescent salt dissolution, and excluded them from the central analysis. What remained was a dataset in which a clear, positive relationship emerged between the potential fraction of Fe(III) as the pyrite oxidant and the concentration of dissolved sulfate. In other words, where the isotopic evidence pointed to ferric iron doing more of the oxidative work, sulfate levels were systematically higher. The theoretical minimum fractions of Fe(III) contribution, derived from laboratory studies and isotope mass balance, appeared to constrain the lower bound of the true contributions, giving the relationship a defensible quantitative footing.

This finding carries real weight for environmental management. Sulfate itself is a major but often under-regulated contaminant, and the pathways that generate it determine how quickly it will continue to be produced long after mining ceases. If Fe(III)-mediated oxidation is the dominant driver of high sulfate concentrations, then the geochemical cycles of iron and sulfur are tightly coupled in the affected aquifers, and remediation strategies that focus solely on limiting oxygen ingress may underestimate the persistence of the problem. Ferric iron can be regenerated within the system as long as ferrous iron and oxygen are available, creating a self-sustaining oxidation loop. Understanding whether that loop is active at a given site is therefore essential for forecasting long-term water quality.

Beyond the immediate findings at Erdenet, the study offers something more general: a framework. The combined use of δ18O of sulfate and δ18O of water, once additional geochemical processes are properly accounted for, provides a systematic method for dissecting sulfide oxidation mechanisms in any mining environment. The authors also point out that variations in the relationship between the Fe(III) fraction and sulfate concentration across different sites can serve as diagnostic evidence for site-specific processes such as gypsum dissolution or sulfate reduction. In effect, the method does not just quantify one reaction; it exposes the full network of reactions that shape sulfate in mining-affected water.

The work also fits into a broader movement in environmental geochemistry, in which multi-isotope toolkits are used to trace contamination from source to sink. The same research group has previously applied multimetal isotope models, combining copper, molybdenum, sulfur-oxygen, and zinc isotopes, to map contamination pathways at a regional scale in mining cities. The Erdenet study extends that logic to the fundamental question of oxidation mechanism, showing that even a single contaminant like sulfate can carry layered information about the conditions of its formation. For a mining region that supplies a substantial share of Mongolia’s export economy, and whose water resources sustain both the city of Erdenet and surrounding herding communities, the ability to read those layers accurately is not an academic luxury. It is the foundation for decisions about water treatment, waste management, and the long-term stewardship of a landscape where the chemistry of pyrite, iron, and oxygen will keep interacting for generations.

Subject of Research: Sulfur and oxygen isotopic tracing of sulfide oxidation mechanisms controlling dissolved sulfate in mining-affected water

Article Title: Sulfur and oxygen isotopic systematics of dissolved sulfate and relative contributions of sulfide oxidants in the Erdenet mining region, Mongolia

Article References: Kim, D.-M., Batsaikhan, B., Im, D.-G., Choi, J.-H., Seo, H.-S., Buyankhishig, B., & Yun, S.-T. (2026). Sulfur and oxygen isotopic systematics of dissolved sulfate and relative contributions of sulfide oxidants in the Erdenet mining region, Mongolia. Environmental Geochemistry and Health, 48(16), Article 636. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-026-03531-y

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s10653-026-03531-y

Keywords: sulfate, sulfide oxidation, Fe(III), pyrite, stable isotopes, acid mine drainage, Erdenet, Mongolia, groundwater contamination, gypsum dissolution, sulfate reduction, mining geochemistry

The research team, led by Banzragch Nandintsetseg of Tottori University’s International Platform for Dryland Research and Education, built what they describe as the first national-scale, scenario-based climate–rangeland–society framework for assessing future dzud risk. The model couples climate hazard projections from five Earth System Models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) with a process-based ecosystem model, ORCHIDEE-GM v3.2, that simulates aboveground net primary productivity of Mongolia’s rangelands. On top of this biophysical foundation sits a socioeconomic layer: a herd-growth model tracking births, dzud mortality, disease mortality, and offtake through domestic consumption and exports, calibrated against decades of data from Mongolia’s National Statistical Office. The framework’s historical validation is impressive, reproducing observed livestock mortality with a correlation of 0.79, hay preparedness at 0.84, and livestock population trends at 0.97.

The historical record the model draws upon is sobering. Between 2000 and 2024, dzuds killed approximately 100.3 million livestock in sheep units. The worst events clustered in the 2000s: the 2000–2002 disasters claimed 26.6 million animals, roughly 10 to 22 percent of the national herd; the record 2009–2010 dzud killed over 10 million animals, about 20 percent of the herd; and the consecutive dzuds of 2023–2024 destroyed more than 13 million livestock across two years, inflicting economic damages estimated at 1.5 to 1.9 billion US dollars. In the most affected regions, 63.3 percent of surveyed households reported livestock losses. These are not abstract statistics—they represent the collapse of livelihoods, rural poverty, food insecurity, and waves of outmigration from the countryside to Ulaanbaatar’s crowded periphery.

Crucially, the study shows that dzud is not simply a weather phenomenon. Statistical analysis of the hazard index reveals a significant increasing trend driven primarily by escalating summer drought frequency and intensity, while winter severity itself shows no statistically significant long-term trend. What has changed most dramatically is the vulnerability side of the risk equation. After livestock privatisation in the early 1990s, Mongolia’s national herd doubled from roughly 55 million to 110 million sheep units by 2024, while hay preparedness per animal declined by 33.7 percent relative to the pre-1990 baseline. The herd has now grown approximately 2.5-fold since 1990, far surpassing the national rangeland carrying capacity of about 103 million sheep units, contributing to rangeland degradation that researchers estimate has already deteriorated roughly 70 percent in some assessments.

The future projections are where the study’s alarm bells ring loudest. Under all three climate scenarios examined—SSP1-2.6, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5—ensemble projections indicate that dzuds will occur nearly annually from the mid-2030s, totalling 13 to 15 events during 2036–2050. Under the high-warming SSP5-8.5 scenario, dzud-related mortality peaks at 49.5 million sheep units in the 2040s. The climate mechanics are compound and cruel: regional air temperatures rise by 2.3 to 2.9 degrees Celsius while precipitation falls by 7.4 to 10.1 percent, with decreases reaching 30 percent in western and central-eastern regions. Meanwhile, snowfall is projected to increase by 24.7 to 29.5 percent across all scenarios, with local maxima of up to 80 percent in western Mongolia. More drought weakens animals going into winter; more snow buries the pasture they need to survive it.

Vulnerability projections compound the hazard story. The national herd is projected to exceed 170 million sheep units by the early 2040s under baseline pathways—more than 60 percent above carrying capacity. Domestic meat demand is expected to grow by 60.7 to 82.2 percent, driven by human population growth of up to 52.3 percent and GDP expansion of up to 5.4-fold, mediated through an income elasticity model. Although total hay preparedness increases modestly thanks to rising rangeland productivity and greater household vehicle ownership, per-animal hay availability declines as the herd swells. In dzud years, hay deficits are projected to run 12.5 to 24.2 percent below the historical average, pushing animals into fatal nutritional stress. Livestock revenues, which rise 22.2 to 27.4 percent during 2025–2035, are projected to fall by roughly 25 percent in the early 2040s under business-as-usual conditions as climate hazards and overstocking collide.

The export-enhanced pathways represent the study’s most consequential finding. Rather than treating export expansion as a simple market-opening exercise, the researchers modelled it as a shift in the fundamental incentive structure of Mongolian pastoralism. Export shares rise gradually from the historical baseline of 0.98 percent of the herd to scenario-specific targets of 5.5 to 6.5 percent by 2050, following a logistic growth trajectory with an inflection point in 2037. The logic is elegant: if herders earn more per animal through quality-focused, timely offtake, they can meet revenue goals with smaller herds. This breaks the demographic inertia that currently sustains herd growth—birth rates of about 31 percent, negligible disease mortality of 0.08 percent, and minimal export offtake—allowing populations to stabilise by the early 2040s and then decline below the carrying capacity threshold.

The quantified results are dramatic. Export-enhanced pathways reduce annual dzud mortality from 8 to 11 million sheep units under baseline pathways down to 1 to 3 million, preventing an estimated 6.0 to 9.5 million animal deaths annually during 2036–2050. Simultaneously, meat revenues increase by 9.2 to 25.4 percent under the business-as-usual export variant, 33.2 to 36.3 percent under SSP-aligned trends, and 27.6 to 34.1 percent under the Vision 2050 development pathway, relative to 2024 levels. The authors emphasise that this demonstrates ecological and socioeconomic sustainability are mutually reinforcing rather than competing goals—a rare and hopeful message in climate adaptation literature. But they are equally clear that the outcome is not automatic: herders have historically responded to market opportunities by accumulating more animals, not fewer, meaning robust institutional frameworks must accompany any export promotion to avoid perverse incentives.

The implementation challenges are formidable. Entering high-value export markets requires compliance with stringent sanitary standards, most critically Foot-and-Mouth Disease certification, demanding sustained investment in veterinary services, epidemiological surveillance, and cross-border biosecurity. The study calls for coordinated investment in veterinary certification, traceability systems, cold-chain logistics, and herder cooperatives, alongside regulatory tools such as pasture taxation and price transmission mechanisms that ensure herders—not market intermediaries—capture the value of export growth. Mongolia’s grass-fed, pasture-based production could be positioned as a premium brand, but only if export growth is grounded in ecological monitoring, herd size regulation, and equitable market access. The authors also caution that hay reserves, while useful, are a temporary buffer rather than a structural solution, since they do not address the proximate drivers of vulnerability: chronic overstocking and rangeland degradation.

The implications extend well beyond Mongolia’s borders. Drylands defined by an aridity index below 0.65 support nearly two billion people, and the study’s integrated framework is explicitly designed to be transferable to comparable Central Asian pastoral systems in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where export promotion experiences offer valuable comparative lessons. The researchers acknowledge their model’s limitations—including national-scale aggregation that cannot capture household-level vulnerability, where families near the minimum viable herd size face the greatest catastrophic risk, and known wet biases in certain CMIP6 models that may overestimate future forage availability. Yet the core message stands with unusual clarity: Mongolia’s pastoralism is approaching a critical threshold of systemic risk beyond which recovery becomes increasingly difficult, and the window for transformative adaptation—aligning herd sizes with ecological limits through market-based offtake, supported by inclusive governance—is open now but narrowing as the mid-2030s approach.

Subject of Research: Projected climate change impacts on dzud livestock mortality and sustainable pastoral pathways in Mongolia's eastern Eurasian drylands

Article Title: Future climate change risks and sustainable pathways for pastoralism in the eastern Eurasian drylands

Article References: Nandintsetseg, B., Shinoda, M., Chang, J., Oniki, S., Agipar, B., Reyer, C. P. O., & Davaadalai, J. (2026). Future climate change risks and sustainable pathways for pastoralism in the eastern Eurasian drylands. npj Sustainable Agriculture, 4(1), Article 78. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44264-026-00173-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s44264-026-00173-6

Keywords: Mongolia, dzud, pastoralism, climate change, rangelands, livestock mortality, CMIP6, overstocking, meat exports, drylands, sustainability, adaptation

Minjin’s path to national recognition has been shaped by a combination of rigorous research and determined advocacy. She is a resident researcher associated with the American Museum of Natural Heritage in New York, an affiliation that has allowed her to bridge the worlds of Mongolian field palaeontology and major international research institutions. At the same time, she is the founder of the Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs in Umnugovi, in the Gobi region of southern Mongolia, where many of the country’s most celebrated Cretaceous fossils have been unearthed. The institute works at the intersection of science, education and community engagement, bringing dinosaur-themed science directly to the communities that live alongside some of the world’s most productive fossil beds.

Among the achievements cited in connection with her honours is her role in recovering and repatriating Mongolian dinosaur fossils that were being illegally exported. The most notable of these cases involved a skeleton of Tarbosaurus bataar, a large tyrannosaurid theropod closely related to Tyrannosaurus rex that roamed the Gobi Desert roughly 70 million years ago. Tarbosaurus is known almost exclusively from Mongolia and neighbouring regions of Asia, which makes specimens of the genus part of Mongolia’s irreplaceable natural patrimony. The repatriation of such a skeleton was more than a legal victory; it was a statement that fossils taken without permission from their country of origin can, with persistence and international cooperation, be returned home.

For her earlier work on fossil recovery and repatriation, Minjin had already received Mongolia’s Polar Star medal, one of the nation’s longstanding state decorations. The new state honour medal awarded this September therefore marks a second national acknowledgement of her contribution, underscoring how central fossil protection has become to Mongolia’s cultural and scientific policy. Fossil trafficking has long been a serious concern in countries with rich vertebrate-bearing sediments, because illegally collected specimens are frequently stripped of their geological and stratigraphic context, the very information that allows scientists to reconstruct ancient ecosystems. When fossils are looted, science loses data even when the bones themselves survive; when they are repatriated with their histories documented, both the nation and the research community recover something of what was lost.

Minjin’s influence extends beyond specimen recovery into the realm of public science. Her work to expand dinosaur-themed science in Mongolia has included educational programming designed to reach young audiences in a country where palaeontology was historically dominated by foreign expeditions. By establishing a research and education presence in Umnugovi, close to the fossil localities themselves, she has helped ensure that the economic and intellectual benefits of dinosaur discoveries flow, at least in part, to local communities. This model, in which local scientists lead research and outreach in their own country, has become an increasingly important touchstone in global discussions about who owns, studies and communicates the deep past.

International audiences will soon have the opportunity to hear Minjin describe this work first-hand. Delegates attending the 7th International Palaeontology Congress in Cape Town can learn more from her experiences as a keynote speaker in the Communicating Palaeosciences Symposium, scheduled for 2 December 2026. In her address, she will share insights into how she helped build awareness around Mongolia’s dinosaur heritage, drawing on nearly two decades of experience at the front lines of fossil protection, repatriation and public education. Her perspective is expected to resonate with researchers and communicators grappling with similar questions of heritage, access and equity in other fossil-rich nations.

The Communicating Palaeosciences Symposium, within which Minjin’s keynote will sit, is designed to bring together researchers and science communicators from across the world to explore how fossils, human evolution and the deep past can be communicated beyond traditional academic audiences. The premise of the symposium is that palaeontology’s stories, extinction, deep time, evolution and the origins of humanity, are among the most powerful in all of science, yet they are frequently conveyed through channels that fail to reach, or fail to respect, the communities most connected to the fossils themselves. Conveners of the symposium argue that the discipline must become more deliberate about how, and to whom, it speaks.

Science communication expert Dr Marina Joubert of Stellenbosch University in South Africa, the symposium convenor, framed the event’s ambitions in terms of inclusion and social relevance. “We will be focusing on how palaeontology is communicated to the public – and how it can become more inclusive, culturally sensitive and relevant to society,” she says. Her co-convener, Professor Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan of the University of Cape Town, who also chairs the organising committee of the 7th International Palaeontology Congress, emphasised the practical goal of the gathering. “Through our engagement with palaeontologists actively engaged in science communication, we hope to uncover good practices and strategies for more effective communication,” she says. Together, the two conveners have assembled a programme that treats communication not as an afterthought to research but as a skill and a responsibility in its own right.

The topics on the symposium agenda reflect the breadth of that ambition. Sessions will address ways to decolonise palaeontology, examining how the discipline’s history of extraction and foreign domination can be confronted and reimagined; misinformation in palaeoanthropology, a growing concern in an era when human-origins claims spread rapidly online; children’s natural-history education, which shapes the next generation of scientists and citizens; and the use of museums and exhibitions to spark public curiosity about the deep past. During the symposium, Dr Frederick Manthi of the National Museums of Kenya will also deliver a keynote address, focusing on the promotion of palaeoscience in Africa through the Kenyan experience, a national story of hominin discoveries, museum development and public engagement that parallels Minjin’s Mongolian narrative in instructive ways.

The Communicating Palaeosciences Symposium at IPC7 is presented with support from the Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST) and the South African Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI), partnerships that signal institutional commitment to public engagement as a core function of the palaeosciences. For Minjin, the Cape Town keynote will be an opportunity to place Mongolia’s experience within a global conversation: a demonstration that fossil protection, repatriation and community-centred education are not local curiosities but transferable strategies. Her state honour medal, awarded by her president and dedicated to her supporters, stands as evidence that governments increasingly recognise what the symposium’s conveners argue, that a nation’s fossils are most secure, and most valuable, when the people who live among them are empowered to understand, protect and celebrate them.

Subject of Research: Recognition of Mongolian palaeontologist Dr Bolortsetseg Minjin for fossil protection and repatriation, and public communication of palaeoscience at the 7th International Palaeontology Congress

Article Title: IPC7 keynote speaker receives national honor for her work to protect Mongolia’s fossils

Article References: IPC7 keynote speaker receives national honor for her work to protect Mongolia’s fossils. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Bolortsetseg Minjin, Mongolia, palaeontology, fossil repatriation, Tarbosaurus bataar, science communication, IPC7, Communicating Palaeosciences Symposium, dinosaur education, cultural heritage, Cape Town, decolonising palaeontology