Rariellidae,a new family of Rhynchoporoidea (Brachiopoda) with a restudy of the type genus Rariella Zhang 1981, from the Emsian (Early Devonian) of Inner Mongolia,north China

Rong Jla-yu & Zhang Yan. 1994:03:28. Rariellidae, a new family of Rhynchoporoidea (Brachiopoda) with a restudy of the type genus Rariella Zhang 1981. from the Emsian (Early Devonian) of Inner Mongolia, north China. Alcheringa 18. 135–146. ISSN 0311-5518

Reinvestigation of the type material of Rariella Zhang 1981, from the late Emsian (Early Devonian) of western Inner Mongolia, north China, shows that it should be attributed to the rhynchoporoids rather than the retziids since it possesses a punctate shell without laterally directed spiralia and lacks evidence for the brachiophore supports being in the fonn of a loop, as in the terebratuloids. A new family Rariellidae based on Rariella as the type genus is characterized by a spondylium apically in the pedicle wlve and a cardinal process on a septalium in the brachial valve. The fauna containing Rariella is mainly endemic to Inner Mongolia and developed at depths within Benthic Assemblage 2 to inner BA 3.     

Shackleton Limestone archaeocyaths

A new monotypic genus of cheirurine trilobite, Azyptyx, is described based on the new species A. toongabbiensis from Early Devonian (late Lochkovian) limestones of the Wurutwun Formation near Toongabbie, Victoria. A feature of the genus that is unusual for the subfamily is a continuous basal glabellar furrow (S1) that does not normally meet the occipital furrow medially.     

Redescription of Parexus recurvus,an Early Devonian acanthodian from the Midland Valley of Scotland

Parexus Agassiz was one of the first Early Devonian ‘spiny sharks’ to be described. The genus is readily recognized by the large size and ornament of its anterior dorsal fin spine. Although two species were erected, reappraisal of all known specimens indicate they should be synonymized in the type species Parexus recurvus. Farnellia tuberculata Traquair, originally described as a vertebral column, is actually tooth rows of jaw dentition, and is also now considered to be a junior synonym of P. recurvus. Parexus has a perichondrally ossified scapulocoracoid of typical acanthodian shape, and diagnostic features of the family Climatiidae, but has distinctive scales comprising appositional growth zones that closely resemble those of the putative stem chondrichthyan Seretolepis elegans Karatajute-Talimaa.     

Remains of an Eocene skink from Queensland

Azurduya gen. nov. (Brachiopoda: Camarotoechiidae) is described from Early Carboniferous sequences in the Argentine Precordillera and northern Chile. Marine assemblages and the palynoflora associated with this genus suggest a Tournaisian age. The type species Azurduya chavelensis (Amos, 1958) is reviewed and redescribed from material from the type locality. Additional material from equivalent localities in the Rio Blanco Basin (La Rioja and San Juan provinces, Argentine Precordilera) has been used to understand ontogenetic changes as well intraspecific variation. Azurduya cingolanii sp. nov. is proposed.     

Pterygotid eurypterid chelicera from the Lower Devonian of Victoria

A single eurypterid (Arthropoda: Chelicerata) chelicera, assigned to Acutiramus sp. cf. A. bohemicus, is described from the Wilson Creek Shale, Turtons Creek inlier, north of Foster, Victoria, Australia. The specimen comprises the proximal portion of both rami. This pterygotid chelicera supports an Early Devonian (?Lochkovian) age for the stratum at this locality, by comparison with occurrences of A. bohemicus from the Czech Republic and closely related species in northern Gondwana.     

Acaste (Trilobita: Phacopina) from the Early Devonian of Tasmania

Edgecombe, G.D. March 2007. Acaste (Trilobita: Phacopina) from the Early Devonian of Tasmania. Alcheringa 31, 59-66. ISSN 0311-5518.

The widespread Siluro-Devonian acastid trilobites Acaste and Acastella are known from few occurrences in Australasia, these being confined to Lochkovian strata in Victoria and New Zealand. A new species, Acaste andersoni, is described from a correlative of the Bell Shale near St Valentines Peak in north-western Tasmania. Acaste supplements the biogeographic links between the Early Devonian faunas of New Zealand, Victoria and Tasmania.

Gregory D. Edgecombe [greged@austmus.gov.au], Australian Museum, 6 College Street, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia; received 2.3.2005, revised 6.4.2005.     

Late Ordovician linguliformean microbrachiopods from north-central Kazakhstan

An assemblage of well-preserved Devonian trilobites is described from limestones in Satun Province, southern Thailand. The biogeographic implications are briefly discussed. The fauna, which is of Early Devonian age, probably Emsian, includes Decoroproetus, Cornuproetus, Platyscutellum and two species of Reedops, one of which is new. No similar fauna has been described before from the Shan-Thai block. The fauna is a typical Hercynian assemblage with close specific comparisons with Turkey, Morocco and Bohemia.     

A new Late Famennian lungfish from New South Wales,Australia, and its bearing on Australian-Asian terrane relations

A new genus and species of lungfish with toothplates, Adelargo schultzei, is described from the Hunter Siltstone (Devonian, Late Famennian) near Grenfell, New South Wales. Materials assigned to Adelargo schultzei gen. et sp. nov., include a portion of the left side of the skull comprising B, I (postparietal) and J (parietal) bones, pterygoid and prearticular toothplates, a parasphenoid with a long posterior stalk, vertebrae, ribs, anal fin supports and scales. Toothplates are similar to Dipterus, although morphology of the skull, parasphenoid and postcranial elements is more derived. Biogeographic relationships of the Grenfell fauna were based on the presence of the antiarch group Sinolepidoidei, also present on Asian terranes during the Late Devonian. A small number of lungfish scales have been described from Asian sinolepid localities of this age, but differ from those of Adelargo schultzei, and other faunal similarities between these areas appear limited. Paucity of eastern Australian Devonian taxa on the North and South China blocks implies that strong biogeographic relationships between eastern Australia and Euramerican localities during the Late Devonian were not the result of Asian migration routes, but the closer proximity of these areas.     

Notocarpos garratti gen. et sp. nov., a new Silurian mitrate carpoid from Victoria

Notocarpos garratti gen. et sp. nov. is described from the middle Ludlovian Humevale Formation of the Clonbinane district, Victoria. It is compared with similar anomalocystitid carpoids and is found to resemble most closely Allanicytidium flemingi Caster & Gill 1968 from the Early Devonian Reefton Beds of New Zealand. N. garratti provides evidence that anomalocystitids rested with the flattened thecal surface against the sea floor (i.e., an orientation opposite to that proposed by Jefferies, 1968). It is further suggested that the stele was adapted to provide a rearward mode of locomotion.     

Palaeogeographic setting of a deep-water trilobite fauna from the Early Devonian (Pragian) of the Upper Yarra,central Victoria. Phacopidae of Victoria,Part 3

A Pragian (Early Devonian) trilobite fauna from the Norton Gully Formation in the Upper Yarra area of central Victoria consists exclusively of the phacopid Prokops moorei sp. nov., a species with a highly variable visual surface including greatly reduced and blind morphologies. Several trilobites are preserved as moult assemblages, but most occur as isolated tergites on bedding-planes crowded with dacryoconarids and small bivalves. The autecology and taphofacies of the fauna indicate a deep-water setting, with the biofacies associations closely resembling deep-water assemblages described from Devonian sequences elsewhere. The distributions of laterally equivalent late Pragian facies from eastern areas of the Melbourne Zone indicate an inclined shelf between Lilydale and the Upper Yarra area, deepening eastwards from shoreline to outer shelf settings. To the northwest and northeast of the Upper Yarra area, the shelf was bounded by tectonically active margins associated with the converging Benambra Terrain, and to the south by the Waratah Bay Platform.     

A new Early Devonian lungfish from Guangxi,China, and its palaeogeographic significance

Qiao, T. & Zhu, M., 13.4.2015. A new Early Devonian lungfish from Guangxi, China, and its palaeogeographic significance. Alcheringa 39, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518

A new species of Cathlorhynchus (Dipnorhynchidae, Dipnoi) is described based on a mandible from the marine Yukiang Formation (early Emsian, Early Devonian) of Guangxi, southern China. It resembles the type species of Cathlorhynchus, C. trismodipterus, in that the anterior portion of the internal median septum terminates abruptly and does not contact dermal bones ventrally. The new Chinese form, together with Erikia jarviki from the Emsian of Yunnan, southern China, confirms the occurrence of the Dipnorhynchus lineage outside Australia. Coupled with the distribution of Westollrhynchus, Ichnomylax and Jessenia, we propose that the Dipnorhynchus lineage was dispersed widely during the early Emsian, corroborating the trans-Panthalassic distribution of early sarcopterygians.

Tuo Qiao [qiaotuo@ivpp.ac.cn] and Min Zhu [zhumin@ivpp.ac.cn], Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PO Box 643, Beijing 100044, PR China.     

Evolutionary morphological changes in the new genus Duoforisa: implication for classification and habitat of the unilocular Foraminifera

Qianyu Li & Brian Mcgowran, 1994:03:28. Evolutionary morphological changes in the new genus Duoforisa: implication for classification and habit of the unilocular Foraminifera. Alcheringa 18, 121–134. ISSN 0311-5518.

Unlike other unilocular foraminifera, the new genus Duoforisa from the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene possesses a kidney-shaped test with two apertures on its distal ends. It contains two distinct and successional species, both new, and differentiated by their apertural details. In Duoforisa rima the apertures are slit-like, and become radial in the descendant D. diducta. Intermediate forms have transitional apertural configurations between the slit type and radial type, accompanied also by a change of the test outline from subtriangular to compactly U-shaped. The evolution of the lineage occurred during a period of enhanced upwelling in the Early Miocene and it was terminated just before the global warming at the Early-Middle Miocene boundary. This example suggests evolution of the unilocular foraminifera through successional morphological changes in test shape and in the aperture. Unilocular taxa have tended to flourish or speciate in cool or upwelling environments. Their contraction in the latest Early Miocene to early Middle Miocene was probably due to global warming and well oxygenated conditions which were widespread in the neritic domains of southern Australia.     

Umkomasia (megasporophyll): part 1 of a reassessment of Gondwana Triassic plant genera and a reclassification of some previously attributed

The genus Umkomasia, a megasporophyll, belonging to the pteridosperms (seed ferns) in the family Umkomasiaceae (Corystospermaceae), is reassessed comprehensively worldwide. All previous records are analysed. Certain fertile structures previously attributed are reclassified. Umkomasia is shown to be restricted to the Triassic of Gondwana where it is associated with the genus Pteruchus, a microsporophyll, and the genus Dicroidium, a vegetative leaf. It is well represented from Argentina, Australia and southern Africa where the Molteno Formation is by far the most comprehensively sampled with eight species described. Two specimens from the upper Permian of India attributed to Umkomasia are reclassified as cf. Arberiopsis sp. A whorled fertile structure from Antarctica, previously assigned to Umkomasia, is reclassified in a new genus as Axsmithia uniramia. Another compression fossil and the permineralized Umkomasia resinosa remain as valid records from Antarctica. The material described as Umkomasia from the Triassic of China is reclassified as Stenorachis asiatica. The Lower Jurassic record from Germany is placed in a new genus as Kirchmuellia franconica. The records of Umkomasia sp. from the Rhaetic of Germany are reclassified as cf. Kirchmuellia sp. and the single specimen from the Jurassic of Libya as genus et sp. indet. The Lower Cretaceous record from Mongolia has been reclassified by other researchers as Doylea mongolica. A pictorial key to Umkomasia species is provided, geographic and stratigraphic distributions are tabulated.     

Chlorozyga,a new caenogastropod from the Early Carboniferous of Australia

Chlorozyga, a new genus of Australian Tournaisian (Early Carboniferous) caenogastropod, is proposed and assigned to the Imoglobidae. Chlorozyga has a larval shell like Imogloba from the Early Carboniferous of North America but differs in teleoconch morphology. As in Imogloba, the initial whorl of Chlorozyga is openly coiled, a feature unknown in Mesozoic and Recent caenogastropods. However, Chlorozyga and Imogloba belong to the Caenogastropoda, given their multi-whorled orthostrophic larval shells.     

Plumulites and the machaeridian problem

Plumulites richorum sp. nov. is represented by two complete sclerite assemblages from Early Devonian strata of the Humevale Formation in a small quarry northeast of Kinglake West, Victoria. The completeness of these sclerite assemblages necessitates a revision of terminology applied to machaeridians. Moreover, the sclerite assemblages make it necessary to erect a new Family Plumulitidae and allow several deductions about the animal itself, namely: 1, there was a discrete head possibly with soft anterior projections; 2, there was considerable modification of sclerites and their arrangement near the head, indicating possible sexual dimorphism; 3, sclerites were almost certainly not rigidly attached to the soft parts of the animal. The material shows that Plumulites was neither an arthropod nor an echinoderm, but rather a vagile benthic animal probably belonging to the Annelida.     

Tertiary Nothofagus macrofossils from Cethana,Tasmania

Two new Tertiary species of Nothofagus from the Early Eocene-Oligocene deposit at Cethana represent the first reports of fossil species which are not closely related to the extant Australian species N. moorei and N. cunninghamii. N. cethanica sp. nov. is most closely related to the extant New Zealand species N. fusca and N. truncata and gives further evidence of the relatively slow evolution within this genus. The other specimen is indistinguishable from extant adult N. gunnii leaves, and has been assigned to that species. This fossil shows that the deciduous habit was probably already present in N. gunnii by the Oligocene, and this may have helped N. gunnii to survive the Late Tertiary/Quaternary glaciations. Juvenile N. gunnii foliage gives some insight into the possible origins of this species, which may have been from the same ancestral stock as N. fusca, N. truncata, and N. cethanica.     

Palaeobiogeography of the Ordovician trilobite Prosopiscus,with a new species from western New South Wales

Prosopiscus is particularly important in Ordovician palaeobiogeography because of its wide geographic distribution in Gondwana and peri-Gondwanan regions. It appears to have been confined to low palaeolatitudes, representing a characteristic member of the warm water eastern Gondwanan shelf faunas. Trends in the distribution of the Ordovician genus can be observed due to its long stratigraphic range. Prosopiscus was restricted to, and may have originated in, Australia during the late Early Ordovician (Bendigonian-Chewtonian). By the Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian), Prosopiscus had dispersed to other parts of Gondwana and peri-Gondwana, including the North and South China blocks, Tarim, central Himalayas, and the Argentine Precordillera (South America). Possible explanations for the distribution of Prosopiscus are that: (1) there were no oceanic barriers preventing dispersal of trilobites between different regions of Gondwana, thus permitting uninhibited migration over vast distances; (2) Prosopiscus was not restricted to a specific biofacies; (3) a major eustatic transgression during the early Darriwilian may have facilitated the dispersal of Prosopiscus in allowing further development and expansion of marine environments; and (4) a prolonged planktonic larval stage may have permitted wide dispersal.

Prosopiscus lauriei sp. nov. is described from the late Early Ordovician (Bendigonian-Chewtonian) Tabita Formation at Mount Arrowsmith, northwestern New South Wales, Australia. The new species is closely related to P. praecox, from the Nora Formation, Georgina Basin, central Australia, and to P. magicus from northwest China.     

The Late Cambrian trilobite Hamashania from Korea

The Late Cambrian trilobite genus Hamashania Kobayashi, 1942a has hitherto been poorly understood and is herein revised based on well-preserved specimens from Korea. Platysaukia Kobayashi, 1960 and Goumenzia Guo & Duan, 1978 are treated as junior synonyms of Hamashania. Hamashania comprises only two species, H. pulchera Kobayashi, 1942a and Pterocephalus busiris Walcott, 1905, and is restricted to North Chinaand Korea. The new genus Pacootasaukia is proposed to accommodate the Australian species Platysaukia jokliki Shergold, 1991 as type species, and Platysaukia tomichi Shergold, 1991, which are so distinct that they cannot be included within Hamashania. The generic concept of Mareda Kobayashi, 1942b, which was often confused with Hamashania, is confined to the type material.     

New,early ostracods from the Ordovician (Tremadocian) of Iran: systematic,biogeographical and palaeoecological significance

New Tremadocian ostracod material from the Alborz Mountains of Iran confirms the early and widespread occurrence of the Ordovician genus Nanopsis, and the apparently simultaneous first appearance of ostracods in the fossil record at the level of the P. deltifer conodont biozone (485.5 Ma) from China to Argentina. Nanopsis pairidaeza sp. nov. adds to the pool of species diversity for the Early Ordovician, though documented Tremadocian ostracod generic diversity remains low, with only four genera. The presence of Early Ordovician ostracods in Alborz, their occurrence elsewhere in palaeocontinental Gondwana, Baltica and China coupled to their marked absence from the Tremadocian of Laurentia and Siberia, supports the notion of the earliest occurrence of ostracods centred on Gondwana/Baltica.