Penniretepora pseudotrilineata Ceretti, 1963

Ernst, Andrej & Minwegen, Elke, 2006, Late Carboniferous bryozoans from La Hermida, Spain, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 51 (3), pp. 569-588 : 582-584

Penniretepora pseudotrilineata Ceretti, 1963

Fig. 7A–C, I; Table 12.

1963 Penniretepora pseudotrilineata sp. nov.; Ceretti 1963: 309–310, pl. 25: 4a, b, text−fig. 6.

?1999 Penniretepora sp. A .; Gonzáles and Suárez Andréz 1999: 607, pl. 2: 10, 11.

Material.— SMF 1724, 1757, 1791, 1792.

Description.—Pinnate colony consisting of straight main branch with frequent secondary branches. Secondary branches diverging from main branch at 60–70 °, spaced 4–6 on each side per 5 mm of main branch length. Apertures circular, arranged on both main and secondary branches in two rows; two−three apertures between two neighbouring secondary branches; spaced 13 per 5 mm along main branch length. Apertures 0.10–0.15 mm in diameter, surrounded by 12–15 nodes. Autozooecia rectangular to pentagonal or kidney−shaped in mid tangential section on main and secondary branches. Hemisepta absent. Wide triserial keel on main branch. Reverse side of colony roughly ribbed. Secondary laminated skeleton well developed, containing abundant microstylets; microstylets diverging from inner hyaline skeleton, regularly spaced across entire colony surface, 0.005 – 0.015 mm in diameter.

Discussion.—Although the internal morphology of Penniretepora pseudotrilineata Ceretti, 1963 is not described in the original description, this species is distinguished quite clearly from existing Penniretepora species. It combines characters such as triserial keel without nodes, rectangular to pentagonal autozooecial shape without hemisepta, and relatively strong main branches. The species P. trilineata Meek, 1872 , as redescribed by Ceretti (1963) from the Upper Carboniferous of the Italian Carnic Alps, has thinner main branches (0.46 versus 0.7–0.85 mm in present material, and 0.81 mm given in the original description of P. pseudotrilineata ), and more closely spaced apertures (17 per 5 mm versus 13 and 14 apertures in the present and Ceretti’s material respectively). Moore (1929) gave similar measurements for the variety Pinnatopora trilineata var. texana — 0.42– 0.55 mm main branch width and 15.5–16.0 apertures per 5 mm. Unfortunately, no internal morphology is known from the American material. The species Penniretepora sp. A , described by Gonzáles and Suárez Andréz (1999), is also very similar to P. pseudotrilineata . These authors mentioned the low, wide and undulose but not triserial keel. No illustrations of the keel of this species are available.

Stratigraphic and geographic range.—Picos de Europa Formation, Moscovian, Upper Carboniferous; La Hermida, Spain. Auernig Formation, bed “l”, Upper Carboniferous (Gzhelian); Italy, Carnic Alps.? Calizas del Cuera, Upper Moscovian (Podolski horizon), Upper Carboniferous; Playa de la Huelga, Spain.