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Machaeridians from the Lower Silurian (Llandovery, Telychian) of Shropshire, England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

Lucy M. E. McCobb  and
Michael G. Bassett
Lucy M. E. McCobb
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, National Museum of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NP, UK,
Michael G. Bassett
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, National Museum of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NP, UK,
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Extract

Machaeridians are marine Palaeozoic fossils, known from sediments of early Ordovician to mid Permian age (Bengtson, 1978; Cooper and Grant, 1972; Kaasa, 1992). Rare, completely articulated specimens reveal that they were long, slender, bilaterally symmetrical animals, covered by a dorsal scleritome comprising longitudinally arranged series of calcite sclerites (e.g., Adrain et al., 1991; Högström and Taylor, 2001a, 2001b). However, most known machaeridians, including those described in this paper, comprise isolated disarticulated sclerites. Until recently, the taxonomic affinities of the group were uncertain, and historically they were assigned to a number of different phyla (e.g., see Adrain, 1992). However, the recent account of an exceptionally preserved specimen with soft tissue anatomy, from the Lower Fezouata Formation (Lower Ordovician, Tremadocian) of Morocco, now indicates that machaeridians were annelid worms (Vinther et al., 2008).

Type
Paleontological Notes
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 82 , Issue 6 , November 2008 , pp. 1207 - 1214
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society

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