Strophonella Hall, 1879

Musteikis, Petras & Cocks, L. Robin M., 2004, Strophomenide and orthotetide Silurian brachiopods from the Baltic region, with particular reference to Lithuanian boreholes, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 49 (3), pp. 455-482 : 468

Genus Strophonella Hall, 1879

Remarks.—The type species is S. semifasciata ( Hall, 1879) from the Wenlock of Indiana, U.S.A. A long−known Baltic species is Strophonella euglypha ( Dalman, 1828) from the Wenlock and Ludlow of Gotland and elsewhere, which was revised by Bassett and Cocks (1974: 17) and Bassett (1977: 143). Harper and Boucot (1978: 96) listed Amphistrophia euglyphoides Holtedahl, 1916, from the Wenlock of the Oslo region, as a species of Strophonella , but, even assuming that the generic assignment is correct, that species requires revision to see whether or not it is truly separate from S. euglypha . Modzalevskaya and Pushkin (1989: 94) and Pushkin et al. (1991: 18) identified S. euglypha from the Upper Wenlock and Lower Ludlow of Belarus. Rybnikova (1966:87; 1967: 194) identified Strophonella “ cf. podolica ( Siemiradzki, 1906) ” from the Ludlow of Latvia, but a revision of that species by Kozłowski (1929: 101) established that it was confined to the Lower Devonian Borshchov horizon of Podolia.

We identify all of the Wenlock and Ludlow strophonellids in the Lithuanian boreholes as Strophonella euglypha ( Fig. 6Q). Its distribution is from the Švenčionys (Telychian), Paprieniai, Jačionys and the Birštonas formations (Sheinwoodian) in east Lithuania; the Riga, Gėluva (Sheinwoodian and Homerian) and Dubysa (Gorstian) formations in central Lithuania; the Dubysa, Rusnė, Pagėgiai (Gorstian and Ludfordian) formations and possibly the Girdţiai Beds of the Jūra Formation (Pridoli) in west Lithuania (Appendix).