scholarly journals Athenacrinus n. gen. and other early echinoderm taxa inform crinoid origin and arm evolution

2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Guensburg ◽  
James Sprinkle ◽  
Rich Mooi ◽  
Bertrand Lefebvre ◽  
Bruno David ◽  
...  

AbstractIntermediate morphologies of a new fossil crinoid shed light on the pathway by which crinoids acquired their distinctive arms. Apomorphies originating deep in echinoderm history among early nonblastozoan pentaradiate echinoderms distinguish Tremadocian (earliest Ordovician) crinoid arms from later taxa. The brachial series is separated from the ambulacra, part of the axial skeleton, by lateral plate fields. Cover plates are arrayed in two tiers, and floor plates expressed podial basins and pores. Later during the Early Ordovician, floor plates contacted and nestled into brachials, then were unexpressed as stereom elements entirely and cover plates were reduced to a single tier. Incorporation of these events into a parsimony analysis supports crinoid origin deep in echinoderm history separate from blastozoans (eocrinoids, ‘cystoids’). Arm morphology is exceptionally well-preserved in the late Tremadocian to early Floian Athenacrinus broweri new genus new species. Character analysis supports a hypothesis that this taxon originated early within in the disparid clade. Athenacrinus n. gen. (in Athenacrinidae new family) is the earliest-known crinoid to express what is commonly referred to as ‘compound’ or ‘biradial’ morphology. This terminology is misleading in that no evidence for implied fusion or fission of radials exists, rather it is suggested that this condition arose through disproportionate growth.UUID: http://zoobank.org/b383e039-3298-4472-a7e3-e81684f87cfe

1986 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 606-626 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce L. Stinchcomb

Fourteen new species and six new genera of the molluscan class Monoplacophora are described from the Upper Cambrian Potosi and Eminence formations and the Lower Ordovician Gasconade Formation of the Ozark Uplift of Missouri and some new biostratigraphic horizons are introduced. A new superfamily, the Hypseloconellacea nom. trans. Knight, 1956, and a new family, the Shelbyoceridae, are named. The genus Proplina is represented by five new species: P. inflatus, P. suttoni from the Cambrian Potosi Formation, P. arcua from the Cambrian Eminence Formation and P. meramecensis and P. sibeliusi from the Lower Ordovician Gasconade Formation. A new genus and species in the subfamily Proplininae, Ozarkplina meramecensis, is described from the Upper Cambrian Eminence Formation. Four new monoplacophoran genera in the superfamily Hypseloconellacea and their species are described, including: Cambrioconus expansus, Orthoconus striatus, Cornuella parva from the Eminence Formation, and Gasconadeoconus ponderosa, G. waynesvillensis, G. expansus from the Gasconade Formation. A new genus in the new family Shelbyoceridae, Archeoconus missourensis, is described from the Eminence Formation and a new species of Shelbyoceras, S. bigpineyensis, is described from the Gasconade Formation.


2007 ◽  
Vol 44 (10) ◽  
pp. 1479-1501 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Pojeta Jr. ◽  
Christopher A Stott

The new Ordovician palaeotaxodont family Nucularcidae and the new genus Nucularca are described. Included in Nucularca are four previously described species that have taxodont dentition: N. cingulata (Ulrich) (the type species), N. pectunculoides (Hall), N. lorrainensis (Foerste), and N. gorensis (Foerste). All four species are of Late Ordovician (Cincinnatian Katian) age and occur in eastern Canada and the northeastern USA. Ctenodonta borealis Foerste is regarded as a subjective synonym of Nucularca lorrainensis. No new species names are proposed. The Nucularcidae includes the genera Nucularca and Sthenodonta Pojeta and Gilbert-Tomlinson (1977). Sthenodonta occurs in central Australia in rocks of Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian) age. The 12 family group names previously proposed for Ordovician palaeotaxodonts having taxodont dentition are reviewed and evaluated in the Appendix.


Zootaxa ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 1085 (1) ◽  
pp. 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEAN JUST

A new genus and species of janiroidean Asellota, Xenosella coxospinosa, is described from the mid-bathyal slope off the coast of south-eastern Australia. Following a comparison of the new species to several families of broadly similar body shape, with emphasis on monotypic Pleurocopidae, a new family, Xenosellidae, is proposed for the new species. In the course of comparing relevant taxa, the current placements of Prethura Kensley in the Santiidae and Salvatiella Müller in the Munnidae are rejected. The two genera are considered to be incertae sedis within the Asellota superfamily Janiroidea pending further studies.


2014 ◽  
Vol 88 (6) ◽  
pp. 1163-1173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Blake

Phragmactis grayaeSpencer andSwataria derstlerinew genus new species are early (Ordovician) asterozoans (Echinodermata) that comprise the Phragmactinidae. Asterozoans are complexly varied, but as is true for other echinoderms, ambulacral construction is critical to interpretation. Phragmactinids share plesiomorphic aspects of ambulacral form and articulation with basal somasteroids and stenuroids whereas the apomorphic ambulacral expressions of asteroids and ophiuroids are lacking. Phragmactinids, like asteroids and ophiuroids, have only one virgal-series ossicle associated with each ambulacral, unlike the multiple ossicles of somasteroids and stenuroids. Virgal morphology of phragmactinids is reminiscent of expressions in somasteroids and stenuroids. Aspects of phragmactinid mouth frame construction are apomorphic. Morphologies of other ossicular series are similarly varied, and as a result, the family cannot be easily fitted into a recently proposed class-level taxonomy of early asterozoans; it is left in open nomenclature. Phragmactinid morphology does not indicate behavior significantly different from that of other early asterozaons. Asterozoan diversity suggests an early period of rapid evolutionary radiation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (4) ◽  
pp. 748-757
Author(s):  
Jobst Wendt

AbstractIn contrast to almost all other invertebrate phyla that constructed biomineralized skeletons during the “Cambrian explosion” and maintained them during the entire fossil record, ascidian tunicates evolved this protective and stabilizing advantage only during the Permian, although soft-bodied representatives of this subphylum made their first appearance already in the early Cambrian. It remains enigmatic why these compound calcareous skeletons persisted only until the Late Triassic, subsequently followed by less-rigid internal skeletons from the Lower Jurassic onwards, which consist of scattered isolated spicules only. In addition to recently described aragonitic ascidian exoskeletons from the Permian and Triassic, new discoveries of similar, but colonial ascidian compound endoskeletons in the lower Carnian exhibit a short-living branch of this group, which moreover contain the first indubitable calcareous spicules. The latter are embedded in the solid endoskeleton, which is composed of polygonal aragonitic plates with smooth outer and zigzag lined inner boundaries. They consist of irregular, parallel (orthogonal), or fan-shaped (clinogonal) arrangements of acicular aragonite crystals. The following taxa are described as new: order Cassianomorpha new order with the family Cassianosomidae new family and the genus Toscanisoma new genus with the species T. multipartitum new species and T. triplicatum new species.UUID: http://zoobank.org/03555353-cdab-42e8-8e99-9bfce15fa249


2012 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 595-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin D. Sumrall ◽  
James Sprinkle ◽  
Thomas E. Guensburg ◽  
Benjamin F. Dattilo

Two new kirkocystid mitrate stylophorans (Echinodermata, Homalozoa) and a new possible solute (Echinodermata, Homalozoa) are described from the Early Ordovician of the western United States. The mitrates are among the earliest members of their clade to appear near the beginning of the Ordovician Radiation. Anatifopsis ninemilensis new species comes from the Ninemile Shale in central Nevada and the McKelligon Canyon Formation in west Texas. Anatifopsis fillmorensis new species comes from the middle Fillmore Formation in western Utah and a Ninemile Shale equivalent limestone bed in southern Nevada. The possible solute Drepanocystis dubius new genus new species from the lower Wah Wah Limestone in western Utah, shows unusual morphology with an elongate theca and a long arm shaped like a sickle.


2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (6) ◽  
pp. 1308-1326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng-Sheng Xia ◽  
Sen-Gui Zhang ◽  
Zong-Zhe Wang

Previous reports of Cambrian bryozoans have proved not to be bryozoans. No pre-Ordovician bryozoans have been recognized. The oldest unequivocal bryozoans known from North America, Britain, and Russia are evidently of early Arenigian age. New bryozoans recently collected from the Fenxiang Formation in the Daping and Guanzhuangping sections, situated in the area east of the Yangtze Gorges, are described here, including one new genus, Orbiramus, and six new species, Nekhorosheviella nodulifera, N. semisphaerica, Orbiramus normalis, O. ovalis, O. minus, and Prophyllodictya prisca. These are assigned to the Trepostomida, apart from the last species which belongs to the Cryptostomida. The new bryozoans are from the conodont Paltodus deltifer deltifer Zone of the late Tremadocian age, the first three species possibly being present in the P. deltifer pristinus Subzone at the base. Therefore, they are the oldest bryozoans known from anywhere in the world. Extensive reefs resulting from a major regression in the late Tremadocian were dominated by bryozoans in the upper Fenxiang Formation. The bryozoans lived in a shoal environment and accumulated essentially in situ, showing no signs of significant transportation.


Zootaxa ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 1792 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
GUSTAVO HORMIGA ◽  
LIHONG TU

The spider genus Putaoa new genus (Araneae, Pimoidae) is described to place two species of pimoids from China, Putaoa huaping new species (the type species) and P. megacantha (Xu & Li, 2007) new combination. Parsimony analysis of morphological characters provides support for the monophyly of Putaoa and for its sister group relationship to the genus Weintrauboa Hormiga, 2003 and corroborates the monophyly of Pimoidae.


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