Turriseiffelus, Dumitrica & Zügel, 2003

Dumitrica, Paulian & Zügel, Peter, 2003, Lower Tithonian mono- and dicyrtid Nassellaria (Radiolaria) from the Solnhofen area (southern Germany), Geodiversitas 25 (1), pp. 5-72 : 18

Genus Turriseiffelus n. gen.

TYPE SPECIES. — Turriseiffelus invalidus n. gen., n. sp. ETYMOLOGY. — From its resemblance with the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

KNOWN RANGE. — Bajocian to early Tithonian.

DIAGNOSIS. — Mono- and dicyrtid nassellarians with a hemispherical cephalis including an initial skeleton consisting of median bar, apical, dorsal, ventral, and primary lateral spines, and the arches AL, AD, LD and LV (or LL), the last two forming four collar pores. Ventral spine short. Dorsal spine short in most cases. Primary lateral spines, exceptionally dorsal spine, extended outside cephalis into three-bladed feet. Apical spine extended into a three-bladed horn. Blades of both apical horn and feet perforated, bearing one or more longitudinal rows of rounded rectangular meshes. Cephalic and thoracic wall, when present, reticulate, formed of crossing bars.

REMARKS

Turriseiffelus n. gen. differs from other sethoperid genera by having commonly only two feet. Most other characters, such as the initial spicule lacking secondary lateral spines, the systems of arches, the branched spines, and the cephalic wall, built by crossing bars forming triangular or quadrangular pores, are common with most members of the family. Perforated blades more or less similar to those of Turriseiffelus n. gen. or spines with branches in the planes of the three blades are found in all or only in some spines of many sethoperids, as for example in the apical horn of Clathrocanium Ehrenberg, 1860 , in all spines of Pteropilium reticulatum (Popofsky, 1913) ( Petrushevskaya 1971) , etc. Moreover, Callimitra (?) sp. of Abelmann (1992) has a rather similar morphology to Turriseiffelus n. gen.