Details of the paper

Title Exceptionally preserved conulariids and an edrioasteroid from the Hunsrück Slate (Lower Devonian, SW Germany)
Co-Author(s) Heyo van Iten
Year: 2010
Language: English
Source: Palaeontology, Vol. 53, Part 2: 403-414
Keywords: Conularia, Scyphozoa, agelacrinitid edrioasteroid, discinid brachiopods, taphonomy, pyritized soft parts
Summary: The Schmiedenberg Conularia and associated edrioasteroid were attached in life to a possible biological substrate, and were buried, suddenly, by silty mud from a distal turbidite, which possibly also transported the ?disarticulated discinid brachiopods. Most of the Conularia were clustered, but whether these clusters were clonal in origin or products of preferential larval settlement is unclear. The concentrations of pyrite present in most of the conulariids occur primarily in rock matrix near the apertural end of the peridermal cavity, and probably resulted from early decay of conulariid soft tissues. Although discrete anatomical structures such as tentacles and gonads are not discernable, the overall form and distribution of the pyrite concentrations are consistent with the hypothesis that the conulariids represent scyphozoan polyps whose oral end was retracted immediately prior to burial.
Reaction 1: Van Iten et al. (in Palaeontology 2012: 1-20) investigated and interpreted an abundant concentration of conulariids and associated invertebrate fossils preserved in situ from the Middle Devonian of eastern New York State (USA). Some evidence from the described exceptional slab of the Hunsrück Slate at Bundenbach has been mentioned: 1) The origin of V-like pairs or radial clusters 2) Small individuals were epifaunal animals attached at their apical end to a hard substrate 3) An epibenthic mode of life on another organism 4) The apertural lappets of semi-erect organisms are folded inward as a possible response to catastrophic burial.
Reaction 2: Sumrall & Zamora (2011; Ordovician edrioasteroids from Morocco: faunal exchanges across the Rheic Ocean; in Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 9(3): 425-454) suggest, as Van Iten & Südkamp (2010), that the encrustations of the Ordovician edrioasteroids were epibiothic and that the conulariids were in a vertical life position at that time.

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