Pycnolepas orientalis Kolosváry, 1966 (nomen dubium)

Original description. Kolosváry (1966: 130, text-fig. 2).

Type. Not indicated; current whereabouts of material unknown.

Locality and stratigraphy. Kuznataj (= River Kuzna-chaj, Azerbaijan); Upper Cretaceous (exact level not specified).

Remarks. The type lot (collected 1958; leg. V.G. Nikitin) of this form consists of isolated capitular valves; Kolosváry referred to these as scutum, carina, carinolaterale, tergum, rostrum and supralaterale. As noted by Collins (1980: 21), the ‘scutum’ in Kolosváry’s fig. 2a clearly is a tergum, while the ‘tergum’ of his fig. 2d is a scutum; that this was intentional can be seen from the description and reconstruction of the capitulum (Kolosváry, 1966: fig. 7). Kolosváry failed to explain why this form should have had three pairs of lateral valves, while the genus Pycnolepas has a single pair (see Withers, 1914, 1935). Alekseev (1979: 17) clarified the provenance of the material by noting that (translated), ‘In the same year, G. Koloshvary (Kolosvary, 1966) based on material from Caucasus, received from O.S. Vialov, briefly described the new species Pycnolepas orientalis (Azerbaijan, River Kuzna-chaj, Upper Cretaceous) and the new subspecies Zeugmatolepas mockleri armenicus (Armenia, Maastrichtian), without pictures giving only schematic drawings’. We consider it best to treat P. orientalis as a nomen dubium until the types are traced, or new material is collected, so as to allow a proper interpretation of this form.

Occurrence. Known only from the type area; no subsequent records.