Funicristata, Burrow & Murphy & Turner, 2023

Burrow, Carole Jan, Murphy, Michael & Turner, Susan, 2023, Late Silurian to earliest Devonian vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Birch Creek II section, Roberts Mountains, Nevada, U. S. A., PaleoBios 40 (4), pp. 1-32 : 16

FUNICRISTATA N. GEN. BURROW, 2023

Type species — Funicristata nevadaensis n. sp., by monotypy.

Zoobank LSID — urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:FD6D940A-FAFF-4FFE-9E35-042B7EBC2315

Diagnosis —as for the species.

Occurrence — Roberts Mountains Formation , central Nevada (Late Silurian, Přidolí) .

Etymology —Funis, Latin for rope or cord, referring to the appearance of the crown ridges, and crista, Latin for crest or ridge.

Remarks —These scales have a highly distinctive crown ornament, not observed in any known scale taxa. The poor preservation of histological structure of scales from this level in the section, with dense hyphal borings through the base and crown, obscures details that could help assign them to a family or order.