Biokovinidae Gušić, 1977

Schlagintweit, Felix & Rashidi, Koorosh, 2017, Zagrosella Rigaudii N. Gen., N. Sp., A New Biokovinoidean Foraminifer From The Maastrichtian Of Iran, Acta Palaeontologica Romaniae 13 (1), pp. 3-13 : 6

Family Biokovinidae Gušić, 1977

Remarks: Loeblich and Tappan (1987, p. 91) defined the Biokovinidae as follows: “Test enrolled, at least in early stage, later may uncoil; wall coarsely perforated, in section appearing almost keriothecal, and honeycomb-like in transverse section; aperture simple, single, or multiple. Jurassic”. Loeblich and Tappan (1987) included the three genera Biokovina Gušić, 1977 , Bosniella Gušić, 1977 , and Chablaisia Septfontaine, 1978 . The presence of internal structures (here: pillars) is not mentioned by Loeblich and Tappan (1987), but Biokovina possesses endoskeletal pillars. Mikhalevich (2004, p. 257) in addition included the presence of “phrenothekalike structures and endoskeletal elements (pillars)” in the diagnosis of the Biokovinidae . Concerning the “phrenothekalike structures” reference is made to comments included in the species comparison later in the present paper. Mikhalevich transferred Chablaisia to the pfenderinids and removed Bosniella from the Biokovinidae due to the lack of endoskeletal structures. In the recent classification of agglutinated benthic foraminifera provided by Kaminski (2014), the Biokovinidae includes the three genera Biokovina (with endoskeleton; no exoskeleton), Bosniella (neither endo- nor exoskeleton), and Trochamijiella Athersuch, Banner & Simmons, 1992 (without endoskeleton; with exoskeleton), taxa with and without internal structures. It is worth mentioning that Trochamijiella does not fit the family diagnosis provided by Loeblich and Tappan due to the lack of a perforated wall. The new genus Zagrosella is here placed into the family Biokovinidae with strict application of the diagnosis provided by Loeblich and Tappan (1987). In fact, at the actual state of knowledge there aren’t other families of complex larger benthic foraminifera (with or without Cretaceous representatives) with equivalent or similar morphology and wall structure in which the Maastrichtian taxon from Iran can be accommodated. In any case, Zagrosella fits the diagnosis of the superfamily Biokovinoidea Gušić (= Biokovinacea Gušić in Loeblich and Tappan, 1987) whose range was indicated as Lower Jurassic (Middle Jurassic) to Maastrichtian, thereby becoming one of its youngest representatives.