2009 in paleontology

Cephalopods

 * Three species of Fossil octopi are discovered.

Newly named crurotarsans

 * Coringasuchus

Dinosaurs

 * A new study on theropod furculae is published.

Newly named dinosaurs
Data courtesy of George Olshevky's dinosaur genera list.

Mammals

 * A study by J. R. Foster is published estimating the body masses of mammals from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation by using the ratio of dentary length to body mass of modern marsupials as a reference. Foster concludes that Docodon was the most massive mammal genus of the formation at 141g and Fruitafossor was the least massive at 6g. The average Morrison mammal had a mass of 48.5g. A graph of the body mass distribution of Morrison mammal genera produced a right-skewed curve, meaning that there were more low-mass genera.

Evolution

 * A study is published that proposes that females from certain taxa use ornaments as a criterion for mate choice because other dimorphic structures, like biological "weaponry" could be used to coerce or force them to mate.
 * A study concludes that biotic factors have more pronounced local and short term evolutionary impacts than abiotic factors, which in turn have a more pronounced effect through time and on biodiversity as a whole.

Extinction
A study noting the effects of the KT mass exinction on Earth's modern biota is published.

Paleobiogeography
Pereda-Suberbiola, X. 2009. Biogeographical affinities of Late Cretaceous continental tetrapods of Europe: a review. Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France 180(1):57-71. doi:10.2113/gssgfbull.180.1.57.