Typhlokorynetes

Typhlokorynetes
Temporal range: Early Tremadocian
T. plana
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Trilobita
Order:
Asaphida
Suborder:
Trinucleina
Family:
Raphiophoridae
Subfamily:
Endymioniinae
Genus:
Typhlokorynetes

Shaw, 1966[1]
Binomial name
Typhlokorynetes plana
(Raymond, 1937)
Synonyms
  • Warburgella plana Raymond, 1937
  • Raymondaspis (in part)

Typhlokorynetes plana is a species of small, button-shaped asaphid trilobites of the family Raphiophoridae that lived during the Early Tremadocian of Vermont, United States.

Etymology

The generic epithet is a compound word of the Greek words "Typhlos," meaning "blind," and "Korynetes," which means "club-bearer," in reference to the animal's eyeless state, and the glabellum that is shaped in the outline of a club or bowling pin.[1] The specific name "plana" refers to the flattened nature of the body.

History of taxonomy

The first fossils of this trilobite were described by P. E. Raymond in 1937 as a blind proetid that he named "Warburgella" plana.[2] In 1959, "W." plana would be redescribed by H. B. Whittington as a species of Raymondaspis in the family Styginidae.[3] Alan Shaw voiced a similar opinion when he moved it into its own genus and family, Typhlokorynetes in Typhlokorynetidae, in that it maybe a specialized styginid with unusual or aberrant sutures and hypostome anatomy.[1] During the 1970s, it was then reappraised as a relative of Endymion in Raphiophoridae.

Occurrence

Specimens are known from the Highgate Formation in northwestern Vermont.

References

  1. ^ a b c Shaw, Alan B. "Paleontology of Northwestern Vermont. XII. Fossils from the Ordovician Highgate Formation." Journal of Paleontology (1966): 1312-1330.
  2. ^ RAYMOND, P.E., 1937, Upper Cambrian and Lower Ordovician Trilobita and Ostracoda from Vermont: Geol. Soc. America, Bull., v. 48, p. 1079-1146, 4 pls
  3. ^ WHITTINGTON, H. B., 1959a, Family Styginidae, in Treatise on invertebrate paleontology, pt. 0, Arthropoda 1: Lawrence, Kansas, Geol. Soc. America and Kansas Univ. Press, p. 365-367, Figs. 275-277