TEGANIIDAE de Laubenfels, 1955

Botting, Joseph P., Muir, Lucy A. & Ma, Junye, 2023, Teganium (Porifera, Hexactinellida) from the Middle Ordovician Castle Bank fauna of Avalonia (Wales, UK), Palaeontologia Electronica (a 21) 26 (2), pp. 1-17 : 4

Family TEGANIIDAE de Laubenfels, 1955

Remarks. Finks and Rigby (2004) included the following taxa within the family Teganiidae : Teganium Walcott, 1879 (the type genus); Bulbospongia Rigby and Mehl, 1994 ; Echidnina Bengtson, 1986 ; Rhombodictyon Whitfield, 1886 ; Rufuspongia Rigby and Mehl, 1994; Taleolaspongia Rigby and Mehl, 1994 ; and Teganiella Rigby, 1986 . Some of these taxa ( Bulbospongia, Rufuspongia and Taleolaspongia ) are known only from Devonian strata of Laurentia ( Rigby and Mehl, 1994; Finks and Rigby, 2004). Teganiella , as stated elsewhere in this manuscript, is previously known from Devonian and Carboniferous rocks of the USA and Teganium is an Ordovician genus. Rhombodictyon is known from Ordovician strata of Laurentia ( Whitfield, 1886; James, 1891; the Devonian stratigraphic range given by Finks and Rigby, 2004, is clearly a typographical error), plus one record from Carboniferous rocks of Poland (Hurcewicz and Czarniecki, 1985). However, we note that Rhombodictyon was considered to be an inorganic structure by Ruedemann (1925a). Resolving the affinity of this taxon would require restudy of the type material and is beyond the scope of this study. Echidnina consists of tiny (210–300 µm diameter) globular spicular bodies (Bengtson, 1986) and is generally considered to be a radiolarian (e.g., Zhang et al., 2021). Thus, the family is primarily Devonian, with some examples from Ordovician and Carboniferous rocks.