A Devonian Brachiopod with Epifauna
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Date
1967-09
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Abstract
Recognition of epifauna-host relationships are difficult to ascertain in fossil material. Distribution and orientation of epifaunal elements, repair of the host shell, deformation of the host by the epifauna, and continued growth of the host provides evidence of the type of relationship.
Brachiopods in the Devonian Silica Formation of northwestern Ohio commonly have abundant epifauna. A specimen of Paraspirifer bownockeri Stewart, collected from this formation shows evidence of a parasitic, in part antagonistic, relationship with the boring sponge Clionoides thomasi Fenton and Fenton and commensal relationships with the worm Cornulites cingulatus? Hall, the inarticulate brachiopod Lingulodiscina marginalis Whitfield, and possibly the bryozoans Hederella canadensis (Nicholson) and H. cirrhosa (Hall). Distribution of the epifaunal elements indicate the life position of the host to be vertical, with the beaks down, or possibly lying on the posterior portion of the pedicle valve after atrophy of the pedicle had taken place.
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Author Institution: Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
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Citation
The Ohio Journal of Science. v67 n5 (September, 1967), 291-297