Stoliczkella, Zágoršek & Gordon, 2014

Zágoršek, Kamil & Gordon, Dennis P., 2014, Revision of the Oligocene bryozoan taxa described by Stoliczka (1862), with the description of a new genus of Bryocryptellidae, Geodiversitas 36 (4), pp. 541-564 : 552-553

Genus Stoliczkella n. gen.

TYPE SPECIES. — Eschara (Flustrina) subovata Stoliczka, 1862 .

ETYMOLOGY. — Honorific for Ferdinand Stoliczka (Czech, Stolička), 7 June 1838 - 19 June 1874, a Moravian paleontologist who worked in India on paleontology, geology and various aspects of zoology, including ornithology and herpetology. He died of high-altitude sickness, at the early age of 36, during an expedition across the Himalayas.

DIAGNOSIS. — Erect, bilamellar colonies with median lamina and narrow, flat or with lensoidal cross section. Autozooecia umbonuloid, frontally imperforate apart from marginal areolar-septular pores. Aperture with median and lateral processes forming paired peristomial spiramina. Large suboral avicularia and imperforate immersed ooecium. Additional adventitious and vicarious avicularia may be present, the latter larger than autozooecia and situated along the colony margin.

REMARKS

Ŋe apertural features of Stoliczkella n. gen. superficially resemble some species of the genus Galeopsis Jullien & Calvet, 1903 (Celleporidae) , in which paired lateral-oral avicularia can fuse across the aperture forming a bridge and peristomial spiramen. In Stoliczkella n. gen., a median process fuses with a pair of lateral processes to form a double spiramen and the apertural avicularium is single and median-suboral. Further, the frontal shield is umbonuloid with a distinct ring scar surrounding an area of planar-spherulitic ultrastructure on the undersurface, whereas the frontal shield in Galeopsis is lepralioid-cryptocystidean.

Ŋe double apertural spiramen resembles similar arrangements in some species of Exochella Jullien, 1888 (Romancheinidae) , but the median suboral avicularium and erect habit suggest Bryocryptellidae . It may be that these two families ( Romancheinidae Jullien, 1888 and Bryocryptellidae Vigneaux, 1949 ) should be merged but the type species of the type genera do not suggest a close relationship. Stoliczkella n. gen. is introduced here for two species described by Stoliczka (1862).