Conulariids of the Upper Talak Formation (Mississippian, Visean) of northern Niger (West Africa)

Conulariids of West Africa have received relatively little detailed attention in the literature on this widespread extinct group of marine cnidarians. Recently, however, Babcock et al. (1995) described two new species, Paraconularia feldmanni and P. sahara, from the upper part of the Mississippian (Visean) Talak Shale Formation in the Tim Mersoi Basin of northern Niger. This was the first report of the genus Paraconularia Sinclair, 1940 from Africa as well as the first assignment of Carboniferous conulariids from that continent to the species level. Since then two of the present authors have collected 24 additional conulariid specimens from the Talak Formation in the same area that yielded the two specimens described by Babcock et al. (1995). Like the previously described material, most of the new specimens, described below, have been worn or weathered to such an extent that it is difficult to identify them to the species level. In some cases, moreover, identification to the genus level is problematical, but this may ultimately be due to the fact that currently recognized conulariid genera (e.g., Moore and Harrington, 1956b) have been defined phenetically, rather than on the basis of prior analysis of the phylogenetic relationships among conulariid species. This means that at least some currently recognized conulariid genera may have been defined by similarities that are primitive or analogous.