Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T22:15:01.992Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The first diploaspidid (Chelicerata: Chasmataspidida) from North America (Silurian, Bertie Group, New York State) is the oldest species of Diploaspis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2016

JAMES C. LAMSDELL  and
DEREK E. G. BRIGGS
JAMES C. LAMSDELL*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, 210 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
DEREK E. G. BRIGGS
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, 210 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511, USA Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
*
†Author for correspondence: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A single specimen of a new species of the chasmataspidid Diploaspis Størmer, 1972 is described from the upper Silurian (Pridoli) Phelps Member of the Fiddlers Green Formation (Bertie Group) in Herkimer County, New York State, USA. Diploaspis praecursor sp. nov. is distinguished by the shape of the posterolateral margins of the buckler, which are drawn out into angular epimera, and by the lack of elongate tubercles on the postabdomen. This discovery increases the taxonomic diversity of the Bertie Group by extending the geographic extent of Diploaspididae into North America. D. praecursor pre-dates previously known species of Diploaspis by more than 10 million years.

Keywords

arthropodDiploaspididaeDiploaspis praecursorBertie GroupSilurian
Type
Rapid Communication
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 154 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 175 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

Current address: Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024, USA

References

Anderson, L. I., Dunlop, J. A. & Trewin, N. H. 2000. A Middle Devonian chasmataspid arthropod from Achanarras Quarry, Caithness, Scotland. Scottish Journal of Geology 36, 151–8.Google Scholar
Bergström, J. 1980. Morphology and systematics of early arthropods. Abhandlungen des Naturwissenschaftlichen Vereins in Hamburg 23, 7–42.Google Scholar
Caster, K. & Brooks, H. 1956. New fossils from the Canadian-Chazyan (Ordovician) hiatus in Tennessee. Bulletins of American Paleontology 157, 157–99.Google Scholar
Ciurca, S. J. Jr. 1973. Eurypterid horizons and the stratigraphy of Upper Silurian and ?Lower Devonian rocks of western New York State. In 45th Annual Meeting and Guidebook, pp. 1–14. New York: New York State Geological Association.Google Scholar
Ciurca, S. J. Jr & Hamell, R. D. 1994. Late Silurian sedimentation, sedimentary structures and paleoenvironmental settings within an eurypterid-bearing sequence [Salina and Bertie groups], western New York State and southwestern Ontario, Canada. In 66th Annual Meeting and Guidebook, pp. 457–88. New York: New York State Geological Association.Google Scholar
Ciurca, S. J. Jr & Honan, S. R. 1965. Eurypterids at Passage Gulf. Earth Science 18, 28–9.Google Scholar
Dunlop, J. A. 2002. Arthropods from the Lower Devonian Severnaya Zemlya Formation of October Revolution Island (Russia). Geodiversitas 24, 349–79.Google Scholar
Dunlop, J. A., Anderson, L. I. & Braddy, S. J. 1999. A new chasmataspid (Chelicerata: Chasmataspida) from the Lower Devonian of the Midland Valley of Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences 89, 161–5.Google Scholar
Dunlop, J. A., Anderson, L. I. & Braddy, S. J. 2004. A redescription of Chasmataspis laurencii Caster and Brooks, 1956 (Chelicerata: Chasmataspidida) from the Middle Ordovician of Tennessee, USA, with remarks on chasmataspid phylogeny. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences 94, 207–25.Google Scholar
Dunlop, J. A., Poschmann, M. & Anderson, L. I. 2001. On the Emsian (Early Devonian) arthropods of the Rhenish Slate Mountains: 3. The chasmataspidid Diploaspis . Paläontologische Zeitschrift 75, 253–69.Google Scholar
Dunlop, J. A., Tetlie, O. E. & Prendini, L. 2008. Reinterpretation of the Silurian scorpion Proscorpius osborni (Whitfield): integrating data from Palaeozoic and Recent scorpions. Palaeontology 51, 303–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, D., Banks, H. P., Ciurca, S. J. Jr & Laub, R. S. 2004. New Silurian cooksonias from dolostones of north-eastern North America. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 146, 399–413.Google Scholar
Gee, D. G., Janák, M., Majka, J., Robinson, P. & van Roermund, H. 2012. Subduction along and within the Baltoscandian margin during closing of the Iapetus Ocean and Baltica-Laurentia collision. Lithosphere 5, 169–78.Google Scholar
Heymons, R. 1901. Die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Scolopender. Zoologia 33, 1–244.Google Scholar
Kjellesvig-Waering, E. N. 1966. A revision of the families and genera of the Stylonuracea (Eurypterida). Fieldiana, Geology 14, 169–97.Google Scholar
Lamsdell, J. C. 2016. Horseshoe crab phylogeny and independent colonizations of fresh water: ecological invasion as a driver for morphological innovation. Palaeontology 59, 181–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamsdell, J. C. & Braddy, S. J. 2010. Cope's rule and Romer's theory: patterns of diversity and gigantism in eurypterids and Palaeozoic vertebrates. Biology Letters 6, 265–9.Google Scholar
Lamsdell, J. C., Briggs, D. E. G., Liu, H. P., Witzke, B. J. & McKay, R. M. 2015. A new Ordovician arthropod from the Winneshiek Lagerstätte of Iowa (USA) reveals the ground plan of eurypterids and chasmataspidids. The Science of Nature 102 (63), 1–8.Google Scholar
Marshall, D. J., Lamsdell, J. C., Shpinev, E. & Braddy, S. J. 2014. A diverse chasmataspidid (Arthropoda: Chelicerata) fauna from the early Devonian (Lochkovian) of Siberia. Palaeontology 57, 631–55.Google Scholar
McGhee, G. R. Jr. 1988. The Late Devonian mass extinction event: evidence for abrupt ecosystem collapse. Paleobiology 14, 250–7.Google Scholar
Novojilov, N. I. 1959. Merostomates du Devonien inférieur et moyen de Sibérie. Annales de la Société géologique du Nord 78, 243–58.Google Scholar
Nudds, J. R. & Selden, P. A. 2008. Fossil Ecosystems of North America. A Guide to the Sites and their Extraordinary Biotas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 288 pp.Google Scholar
Poschmann, M., Anderson, L. I. & Dunlop, J. A. 2005. Chelicerate arthropods, including the oldest phalangiotarbid arachnid, from the Early Devonian (Siegenian) of the Rhenish Massif, Germany. Journal of Paleontology 79, 110–24.Google Scholar
Racki, G. 2005. Toward understanding Late Devonian global events: few answers, many questions. In Understanding Late Devonian and Permian–Triassic Biotic and Climatic Events. Developments in Paleontology and Stratigraphy 20 (eds Over, D. J., Morrow, J. R. & Wignall, P. B.), pp. 5–36. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Selden, P. A., Lamsdell, J. C. & Liu, Q. 2015. An unusual euchelicerate linking horseshoe crabs and eurypterids, from the Lower Devonian (Lochkovian) of Yunnan, China. Zoologica Scripta 44, 645–52.Google Scholar
Stigall, A. L. 2012. Speciation collapse and invasive species dynamics during the Late Devonian “mass extinction”. GSA Today 22, 4–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Størmer, L. 1972. Arthropods from the Lower Devonian (Lower Emsian) of Alken an der Mosel, Germany. Part 2: Xiphosura. Senckenbergiana lethaea 53, 1–29.Google Scholar
Tetlie, O. E. & Braddy, S. J. 2004. The first Silurian chasmataspid, Loganamaraspis dunlopi gen. et sp. nov. (Chelicerata: Chasmataspidida) from Lesmahagow, Scotland, and its implications for eurypterid phylogeny. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences 94, 227–34.Google Scholar
Tollerton, V. P. Jr. 1989. Morphology, taxonomy, and classification of the order Eurypterida Burmeister, 1843. Journal of Paleontology 63, 642–57.Google Scholar
Torsvik, T. H., Smethurst, M. A., Meert, J. G., Van der Voo, R., McKerrow, W. S., Brasier, M. D., Sturt, B. A. & Walderhaug, H. J. 1996. Continental break-up and collision in the Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic – a tale of Baltica and Laurentia. Earth-Science Reviews 40, 229–58.Google Scholar
Vrazo, M. B., Brett, C. E. & Ciurca, S. J. Jr. 2016. Buried or brined? Eurypterids and evaporites in the Silurian Appalachian basin. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 444, 48–59.Google Scholar
Weygoldt, P. & Paulus, H. F. 1979. Unterschungen zur Morphologie, Taxonomie und Phylogenie der Chelicerata. Zeitschrift für Zoologische Systematik und Evolutionsforschung 17, 85–116, 117–20.Google Scholar