Protoseris
Milne Edwards, 1851, p. 129
Milne Edwards evoked the new genus in three different publications in 1851. According to the references to pages, it seems that the chronology is first the Monographie des polypiers fossiles des terrains palæozoïques, précédée d'un tableau général de la classification des polypes, p. 129 then the british fossil corals p. 103 and finally the monographie des fongides p. 126.
Type Species
Protoseris waltoni Edwards and Haime, 1851, p.129,; Monotypy
Type Specimen: Holotype; SMC J 2874; Verified; Dry Preserved
Type Locality: Upper Corallian from Osmington near Weymouth (Dorset, England)
Edwards and Haime illustrated their new genus in 1851 (British fossil corals) p. 103 pl. 20 fig. 1. The type specimen is in Cambridge Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences. The following description is mainly based on the samples from the Tomes collection in British Museum and especially R 7906 and R 7902 issued from the type locality and for which thin sections are available.
Classification
Description
Massive foliaceous thamnasterioid corallum with a simple lamellar or funnel shaped colony or a more complicate and tortuously folded shape. Lower surface with no holotheca, but unequal costae. Intracalicinal increase producing a thamnasterioid submeandroid structure. The meandroid pattern is well developed in regularly lamellar colonies (probably dimorphastreoid) but concentric collines show no wall. Radial elements are subcompact to irregularly perforate anastomosed sinuous biseptal sheets. Distal edge moniliform, inner edge with detached trabecules, lateral faces with discontinuous menianae. Regular alternation of pennular levels, pennular edges finely dentate and turned toward distal direction. No pali. Microstructure made of fascicle of fibers not strongly centered around well defined trabecular axes. Hexameral symmetry cannot be deciphered, bilateral symmetry marked by the curvature of septa and their joinings. Endotheca made of vesiculose dissepiments. Deep papillose columella. Synapticulae present. No wall.
Comparisons
Periseris is very similar but has a styliform columella and a holotheca. Dimorpharaea is regularly fenestrate, The possible synonymy with Fungiastraea, Kobya and Synastrea is still to be investigated
Distribution
- Western Europe, Southern Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Caribbean, West Asia; Late Jurassic - Late Cretaceous
This page has been in preparation since 19-Aug-2009 17:19
This version was contributed by Bernard Lathuilière on 13-Feb-2016 11:10.
Page authors are: Bernard Lathuilière Ewa Roniewicz. Please contact the editor if you would like to contribute to the diagnosis of this taxon.
The editor is: Bernard Lathuilière
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