Atollites Maas, 1902

Serpagli, Enrico, 2005, First record of the ichnofossil Atollites from the Late Cretaceous of the Northern Apennines, Italy, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 50 (2), pp. 403-408 : 404

Ichnogenus Atollites Maas, 1902

Type ichnospecies: Atollites zitteli Maas, 1902 , by subsequent designation ( Kieslinger, 1939).

Diagnosis.—Body discoidal, of circular outline; mid−field with small, circular, smooth depression, encircled by slightly convex annular zone crossed by 12 to 14 raised, narrow radial bands; external zone with 12 to 14 pyriform lobes, wider and thicker at periphery, sharply separated by deep radial sulci, some partly split by supplementary radial grooves.

Seilacher (1954: fig. 2) was the first to classify rosetted structures like Lorenzinia (and Atollites ) as feeding burrows abandoning the idea that they were imprints of medusae. As will be demonstrated below, Atollites represents a complex burrow system, which has nothing to do with medusoid−like body fossils owing to the presence of a vertical shaft connecting the cells (clubs) via lateral tunnels (cylinders).

Atollites has been regarded as synonymous with Lorenzinia Gabelli, 1900 (not Da Gabelli) by several authors ( Kieslinger 1939). I believe that Atollites is not only different from Lorenzinia , as pointed out also by Seilacher (1977: 317), but also that these two trace fossils possibly belong to different ethological groups.