Pseudofurnishius, Van den Boogaard, 1966

Plasencia, Pablo, Hirsch, Francis, Sha, Jingeng & Márquez-Aliaga, Ana, 2015, Taxonomy and evolution of the Triassic conodont Pseudofurnishius, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 60 (2), pp. 385-394 : 393

Evolution of Pseudofurnishius

Alternatively to that of Sadeddin and Kozur (1992), we recognise a well age-constrained upper Pelsonian to lower Carnian Pseudofurnishius lineage ( Fig. 8B ). Starting in the late Pelsonian–earliest Illyrian shallow Southern Tethys environments during the initial development of the “Sephardic Province”, are both P. siyalaensis and P. priscus sharing characters that fit in a possible ancestry of P. shagami and P. murcianus .

Pseudofurnishius priscus and P. shagami are so similar to each other that they may well be conspecific ( Plasencia et al. 2007). The morphology of the basal cavity of P. shagami and P. murcianus ( Fig. 4 ) suggests a close evolutionary relationship between both species. As the most successful species of the genus, P. murcianus persisted during the whole Ladinian, until its extinction at the beginning of the Carnian.

Mosherella may have originated from Pseudofurnishius , as proposed by Kozur (1972), based on the similarities of the blade shape and the basal field in both genera that from the point of view of morphological resemblance is plausible. We must, however, bear in mind that neospathodid morphs originated recurrently as a result of paedomorphosis, presumably in connection to sea level changes ( Dzik and Trammer 1980; Hirsch 1994). Mosherella , may thus be a neospathodid that resulted from paedomorphosis, a phenomenon recurring with Neocavitella ( Sudar and Budurov 1979) .

Figures

Fig. 8. Evolutionary scenarios for the genus Pseudofurnishius after Sadeddin and Kozur (1992) (A) and present study (B).

Fig. 4. Comparison of the basal cavities of gondolellid conodonts Pseudofurnishius shagami (Benjamini and Chepstow-Lusty, 1986), Har Gevanim, Saharonim Formation, Negev, Israel, Anisian–Ladinian (A) and Pseudofurnishius murcianus Van den Boogaard, 1966, Arroyo Hurtado, Murcia, Spain, Ladinian (B).