Mickwitzia Schmidt, 1888

Skovsted, Christian B. & Holmer, Lars E., 2003, The Early Cambrian (Botomian) stem group brachiopod Mickwitzia from Northeast Greenland, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 48 (1), pp. 1-20 : 3

Genus Mickwitzia Schmidt, 1888

Type species: Lingula monilifera Linnarsson, 1869 ; Lower Cambrian (?Tommotian–Atdabanian) Mickwitzia beds (File Haidar Formation), Västergötland, Sweden.

Diagnosis.—As for family.

Remarks.—The most important distinguishing character of Mickwitzia is its shell structure, which has usually been described simply as “punctate” and “three−layered” due to the poor preservation of all previously available material (e.g., Walcott 1912; McMenamin 1992; Laurie 2000). However, it is now clear that most aspects of the shell structure conform with the columnar shell of linguliform brachiopods; the most important and unique aspects of the shell structure that set Mickwitzia apart from the linguliforms are connected with the thicker tubes, and in particular the setigerous tubes that penetrate the shell on the ventral pseudointerarea (see further below). Specific discriminations and definitions within the genus are difficult due to the general lack of preserved distinctive characters (apart from differences in size) in most described species (see McMenamin 1992; Jensen 1993), and a full revision and list of species referred to the genus are outside of the scope of this paper.