Palaeotripus Goodbody, 1986

Noble, Paula, Aitchison, Jonathan C., Danelian, Taniel, Dumitrica, Paulian, Maletz, Jörg, Suzuki, Noritoshi, Cuvelier, Jessie, Caridroit, Martial & O’Dogherty, Luis, 2017, Taxonomy of Paleozoic radiolarian genera, Geodiversitas 39 (3), pp. 419-502 : 455

Palaeotripus Goodbody, 1986

Palaeotripus Goodbody, 1986: 152 .

TYPE SPECIES. — Palaeotripus nudus Goodbody, 1986 ( Goodbody 1986: 154, pl. 1, fig. 8).

AGE AND LOCATION OF TYPE MATERIAL. — Wenlockian, Silurian, Cape Phillips Formation, Arctic Canada.

TAXON CODE. — 154.

STATUS. — Junior synonym of Palaeodecaradium Goodbody, 1986 (by MacDonald 2004).

DIAGNOSIS. —“Six rays arising from point to bar center, these clearly distinguishable into three apical and three basal rays. Apical rays usually noticeably shorter than basal rays.” ( Goodbody 1986: 152).

REMARKS

MacDonald (2004: 268) synonymizes the type species, Palaeotripus nudus Goodbody, 1986 , with Palaeodecaradium apertum Goodbody, 1986 , noting that the designation of a fixed number of apical and basal rays is arbitrary, and forces some intraspecific variation to be regarded as a genus level distinction. Other species of Palaeotripus have also been synonymized with otherwise identical species artificially split into separate genera because of differences in ray position and number (i.e., P. monospinosus Goodbody, 1986 by MacDonald [2004: 271]; P. sextabranchiatus Renz, 1990 by Noble & Webby [2009: 555]).