Premium
Redescription of Drepanopterus abonensis (Chelicerata: Eurypterida: Stylonurina) from the late Devonian of Portishead, UK
Author(s) -
LAMSDELL JAMES C.,
BRADDY SIMON J.,
TETLIE O. E.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
palaeontology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.69
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1475-4983
pISSN - 0031-0239
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2009.00902.x
Subject(s) - telson , devonian , paleontology , appendage , carapace , carboniferous , biology , late devonian extinction , viséan , paleozoic , genus , key (lock) , permian , spine (molecular biology) , zoology , ecology , crustacean , microbiology and biotechnology , structural basin
Stylonurid eurypterids (Arthropoda: Chelicerata) include some of the largest known arthropods – bizarre sweep‐feeding hibbertopterids from the Carboniferous to end‐Permian. New material of Drepanopterus abonensis , a stylonurid from the Late Devonian (Famennian) of Portishead, south‐west England, offers key insights into this genus and its affinities. A redescription utilising the new material enables D. abonensis to be assigned as basal member of the Superfamily Hibbertopteroidea, the large‐sweep‐feeding forms, possessing a cleft metastoma and blades (modified blunt spines) on their anterior prosomal appendages. D. abonensis also shares characters such as a clavate telson and median ridge on the carapace with the proposed hibbertopteroid sister group the Kokomopteroidea. Hibbertopteroid eurypterids are the most long‐ranging stylonurids, surviving the decline and extinction of the other eurypterid families in the Late Devonian, their survival probably because of their sweep‐feeding mode of life, which was not in direct competition with their eurypterine relatives and other predators.