Schizoporella Hincks, 1877

Tompsett, Scott, Porter, Joanne S. & Taylor, Paul D., 2009, Taxonomy of the fouling cheilostome bryozoans Schizoporella unicornis (Johnston) and Schizoporella errata (Waters), Journal of Natural History 43 (35 - 36), pp. 2227-2243 : 2229

Genus Schizoporella Hincks, 1877

Type species

Lepralia unicornis Johnston, 1847 , Recent, British Isles. By original designation.

Remarks

Canu (1908) considered S. unicornis to be a junior subjective synonym of Multiporina ostracites d’Orbigny, 1852 , an Oligocene fossil that is the type species of Multiporina d’Orbigny, 1852 by monotypy, making Schizoporella Hincks, 1877 a junior synonym of Multiporina . This synonymy was supported by Bassler (1935) who noted that although Multiporina is the senior synonym, because of the common use of Schizoporella in later studies the latter genus should be maintained. The issue was revisited by Buge (1975) who figured d’Orbigny’s holotype of M. ostracites and confirmed the synonymy of Multiporina and Schizoporella . Gordon and Taylor (2005) noted that Multiporina should be treated as nomen oblitum because it has not been used for over 50 years.

Figures of the holotype of M. ostracites in Buge (1975) show that it is indeed a species of Schizoporella but is not conspecific with S. unicornis as described below from the lectotype. In particular, the avicularia of M. ostracites are situated further distally on the frontal shield, are more distally directed and the rostrum is convex in shape.

The genus Schizopodrella was erected by Canu and Bassler (1917) and assigned the type species L. unicornis Johnston, 1847 . Schizopodrella was used to describe species in which the orifice of the ovicell is closed by a membrane, whereas Schizoporella was preserved as a means of categorizing all of those species “imperfectly studied”. The decision of Canu and Bassler (1917) to select L. unicornis as type species is based on their assertion that Hincks did not designate a type species for his genus Schizoporella . However, this is not the case as Hincks (1877) clearly stated that L. unicornis (Johnston) is the type species. It is likely that Canu and Bassler (1917) referred to Hincks (1880) in which the genus Schizoporella is redescribed without any indication of the type species. Schizopodrella is therefore an objective junior synonym of Schizoporella as the two genera share the same type species. This was noted by Bassler (1935) who placed Schizopodrella in synonymy with Schizoporella .