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Benthic auto-mobility in discoid Palaeacis from the Pennsylvanian of the Ardmore Basin, Oklahoma?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2016

Gregory E. Webb
Gregory E. Webb*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Texas A & M University, College Station 77843
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Abstract

The enigmatic tabulate genus Palaeacis is composed primarily of species with wedge-shaped coralla. Palaeacis walcotti Moore and Jeffords, 1945, P. kingi Jeffords, 1955, and P. cf. P. walcotti, described below from the Morrowan (Pennsylvanian) Golf Course Formation of the Ardmore Basin, south-central Oklahoma, represent a distinctive morphogroup characterized by a discoid corallum. Discoid Palaeacis ranges from the Morrowan to the Missourian and, so far, is known only from the mid-continent region of North America. The discoid shape, combined with concentric skeletal accretion, large corallite diameters, complex calice floors, and porous skeleton suggest, based on comparisons with the functional morphology of recent scleractinians, that these corals were well suited to an auto-mobile (vagile) life strategy, much as are many Recent fungiid corals. Discoid Palaeacis inhabited environments with muddy or sandy, unconsolidated substrates and was associated with low-diversity, nonencrusting faunas. This association is consistent with an auto-mobile life strategy. Auto-mobility in Palaeacis would represent the first such reported occurrence in the Tabulata, and the first in Paleozoic colonial corals of all types.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , March 1994 , pp. 223 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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