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New camerate crinoids from the Ordovician of Scotland and Wales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2007

Stephen K. Donovan
Affiliation:
Department of Palaeontology, Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum, Postbus 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, The [email protected]
Neil Gilmour
Affiliation:
A/S Norske Shell, Exploration and Production, Risavika Havnering 300, P.O. Box 40, 4098 Tanager, Norway e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Two new broad-cupped camerate crinoids are reported from the Upper Ordovician (Ashgill, Rawtheyan) Lady Burn Starfish Beds of the Girvan district, Strathclyde, SW Scotland. These represent a significant addition to the limited crinoid diversity known from the Ordovician of the British Isles. The 20-armed diplobathrid Eodimerocrinites littlewoodi gen. et sp. nov. is similar to Silurian Dimerocrinites Phillips, but lacks median ray ridges and has a distinct calyx sculpture. Camerate sp. indet. differs from E. littlewoodi in the sculpture of the dorsal cup and the arrangement of the interbrachial plates, but it preserves insufficient information for it to be further classified with confidence.

New specimens of the diplobathrid gen. et sp. nov. cf Botting from the Middle Ordovician (Llanvirn, Abereiddian) of central Wales, that illustrate hitherto unknown morphological features, including a distal rhizoidal holdfast and a geniculate proximal column, suggest that this species was a rheophilic filter feeder. One specimen is one of the most complete fossil crinoids known from the Ordovician of the British Isles.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Royal Society of Edinburgh 2002

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