English Wealden fossils: an update

The non-marine Wealden succession of southern England contains a great variety of fossils, new finds of which continue to reveal novel insights into the animals and plants that inhabited this part of the world during much of the Early Cretaceous. Although seldom common, careful searching during the past few years has yielded megafossils that add to previous knowledge of occurrences of taxa and palaeoenvironmental conditions. Particularly significant in this respect has been the recovery of a large number of new insect species, but there have also been numerous finds of vertebrate bones and other body parts, such as teeth, skulls, a claw and a cranial endocast. In addition, the taxonomy of some of these groups and, in the case of dinosaurs, the ichnotaxonomy of their footprints and trackways, has been reviewed and/or reassessed. In this paper, we provide an illustrated account of the research that has been published on Wealden geology and the fossils that have been recovered from the succession since a field guide to English Wealden fossils was issued by the Palaeontological Association in 2011. It is aimed at providing the reader with a document of first resort for fossil identification purposes and a lead into the literature for further information.