Mark Wilson July 11th, 2014
Above are four valves of the chonetid brachiopod Dyoros planiextensus Cooper and Grant, 1975. They are preserved by silicification and were recovered from a block of the Road Canyon Formation (Roadian Stage of the Guadalupian Series of the Permian System) from the Glass Mountains of southwestern Texas. It is from the same unit and location as the rhynchonellid brachiopod presented two weeks ago in this blog. (Please see that entry for additional links and explanations of the preservation.)
It took me awhile to work out the systematics of this species, so I must show you in exquisite detail —
Class Strophomenata Williams et al., 1996
Order Productida Sarytcheva and Sokolskaya, 1959
Suborder Chonetidina Muir-Wood, 1955
Superfamily Chonetoidea Bronn, 1862
Family Rugosochonetidae Muir-Wood, 1962
Genus Dyoros Stehli 1954
Species Dyoros planiextensus Cooper and Grant, 1975
The chonetid brachiopods (at the suborder level) can be extremely common in Permo-Carboniferous units. I’ve seen hillsides in southeastern Ohio that seemed coated with them as they eroded from the shales beneath. They were well adapted to living on soft sediments with their flat, thin shells. In life they had a series of small hollow spines extended from the hinge line (the straight parts of the shell where the valves articulated; top in the photos above) to help anchor them as juveniles and possibly serve as extensions of their sensory systems.
Just a short entry this week. If all proceeded by plan, I’m somewhere deep in China right now!
Cooper, G.A. and Grant, R.E. 1975. Permian brachiopods of West Texas, III. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 19:795-1921.
Racheboeuf, P.R., Moore, T.E. and Blodgett, R.B. 2004. A new species of Dyoros (Brachiopoda; Chonetoidea) from Nevada (United States) and stratigraphic implications for the Pennsylvanian and Permian Antler Overlap assemblage. Geobios 37: 382-394.
Stehli, F.G. 1954. Lower Leonardian Brachiopoda of the Sierra Diablo. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 105: 257-358.