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Chelicerata from the Dinantian of Foulden, Berwickshire, Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Charles D. Waterston
Charles D. Waterston
Affiliation:
Royal Scottish Museum, Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF, Scotland.
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Abstract

A lower Carboniferous limulacean Rolfeia fouldenensis gen. et sp. nov. is described. It is regarded as a sister group of Paleolimulus and distinguished from it by the presence of fixed opisthosomal spines and by the more primitive outline of the opisthosoma. Both characters could have been derived from belinuroid ancestors, and both were retained in the advanced belinurids and euproopids. The view that limulaceans are more closely related to certain primitive belinuraceans rather than descended from the euproopaceans is thus supported by the new evidence. Although Rolfeia was probably still capable of coaption, it is postulated that, like other limulaceans, it had adopted burial as a form of defence. It is suggested that the primary adaptive function of the fixed opisthosomal spines was to support the body over a soft substrate although they may also have served a defensive role.

The occurrence at Foulden of the eurypterid Cyrtoctenus peachi Størmer and Waterston is confirmed. The eoscorpiid Trachyscorpio squarrosus Kjellesvig-Waering 1984 has been described from Foulden and disjecta membra of Gigantoscorpio cf. willsi Størmer discovered in the recent excavation are described. The type of preservation and adaptive features of the chelicerates would suggest that the eurypterid and scorpion fragments are allochthonous and the xiphosurans probably autochthonous.

Keywords

ArachnidaArthropodaCarboniferousMerostomataRolfeiataxonomyXiphosurida
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , 1985 , pp. 25 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1985

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