Parapolygnathus Klapper and Philip, 1971

Dzik, Jerzy, 2002, Emergence and collapse of the Frasnian conodont and ammonoid communities in the Holy Cross Mountains, Poland, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 47 (4), pp. 565-650 : 604

Genus Parapolygnathus Klapper and Philip, 1971 Type species: Polygnathus angusticostatus Wittekindt, 1966 .

Emended diagnosis.—Polygnathids with gently curved processes of S 1 (lo) elements, robust platform of P 1 (sp) elements, and relatively weakly reclined processes of M (ne) elements.

Remarks.—The genus was originally established by Klapper and Philip (1971) in result of a misidentification of the apparatus. The type species belongs to one of the two main Middle Devonian branches of the polygnathids with robust platforms, the other comprising P. linguiformis (see Weddige and Ziegler 1979). They both differ from the type lineage of Polygnathus not only in the elaborate platform of the P 1 (sp) elements, but also in a more robust morphology of the M (ne) elements and a less angular appearance of the S 1 (lo) elements (Chatterton 1974; Sparling 1981). There is a need to split the too widely interpreted and species−rich genus Polygnathus into more narrowly defined genera and Ipro − pose to redefine the genus Parapolygnathus for this purpose.