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Color banding in the Triassic terebratulid brachiopod Coenothyris from the Muschelkalk of Central Europe
- Hans Hagdorn, Michael R. Sandy
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- Journal:
- Journal of Paleontology / Volume 72 / Issue 1 / January 1998
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 20 May 2016, pp. 11-28
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- Article
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The Triassic terebratulid brachiopod Coenothyris frequently displays preserved color patterns; such patterns have commonly been recorded from Paleozoic terebratulid brachiopods. Despite the frequency with which color patterns are preserved in Coenothyris, there has been no recent investigation of the cause and significance of this phenomenon. Shell material is well-preserved; energy-dispersive spectroscopy and microprobe analysis has been unable to detect compositional differences between colored and noncolored shell. This supports the organic origin of the color patterns as suggested for Devonian terebratulids by Richter (1919); color patterns originate from organic pigment in the primary shell layer.
Three subtypes of radial color banding are identified: subtype A with a relatively large number (up to 80) of delicate color bands on each valve; subtype B with fewer and generally wider color bands (less than 20) on each valve of adult specimens; subtype C with faint to fairly wide but very short color bands along the anterior margin (ranging from a few to more than 50 in number). Serial sections prepared from subtypes A and B confirm their congeneric status.
As shell form (length/width/thickness ratio) and maximum size varies, color pattern types differ in various stratigraphic horizons and also in isochronous populations from different geographic localities, indicating different facies. However, the variation in color patterns is not due to systematic differences at the species or subspecies level but rather reflects a tendency among Coenothyris vulgaris to respond to different environmental parameters. This variation in color patterns is ecophenotypic.
21 - Triassic Muschelkalk of Central Europe
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- By Hans Hagdorn, Künzelsau Commercial School
- Hans Hess, Basel Natural History Museum, Switzerland, William I. Ausich, Ohio State University, Carlton E. Brett, University of Cincinnati, Michael J. Simms, Ulster Museum, Belfast
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- Book:
- Fossil Crinoids
- Published online:
- 10 November 2010
- Print publication:
- 28 October 1999, pp 164-176
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Summary
WITCHES’ MONEY AND CHICKEN LEGS: THE RESEARCH HISTORY OF ENCRINUS LILIIFORMIS
Long before the advent of scientific palaeontology, common fossils were connected with superstition and legends of popular belief (Abel 1939). In Lower Saxony the abundant columnals of the Muschelkalk sea lily Encrinus liliiformis were called Sonnenräder (sun wheels), and in Thuringia and Hessia they were called Bonifatiuspfennige (St. Boniface's pennies) because the saint who baptised the German tribes was said to have cursed all the pagan money, which turned into stone. In southwestern Germany, Encrinus columnals were called Hexengeld (witches’ money). According to a legend from Beuthen in Upper Silesia, in 1276 St. Hyacinth's rosary broke when he was praying at a fountain, and the beads dropped into the water. The saint prayed for them to multiply, and since then the fountain has been producing rosary beads: columnals of a diverse Middle Muschelkalk crinoid association (Hagdorn et al. 1996).
Therefore, it is not astonishing that columnals of Encrinus liliiformis were among the first crinoid remains described in the scientific literature. In his monograph, De natura fossilium (1546), Georgius Agricola from Chemnitz in Saxony introduced the name ‘Encrinos lilgenstein’, which means stone lily. However, he used this name for Chladocrinus columnals from the Lias of Hildesheim. For the cylindrical columnals of Encrinus liliiformis, Agricola coined the names ‘Trochites’ (wheel stones, a translation of their trivial German name, Rädersteine) for single columnals and ‘Entrochus’ for pluricolumnals. A hundred years later, Fridericus Lachmund, in Oryctographia Hildesheimensis (1669), illustrated columnals, cups and cup elements (Pentagonus) as well as a fragmentary crown, the arms of which he compared to chicken legs.