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Journal of Paleontology

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REVISION OF SOME COMMON CARBONIFEROUS GENERA OF NORTH AMERICAN ORTHOCERID NAUTILOIDS

¹ Museum für Naturkunde, Invalidenstraße 43, D-10115 Berlin, Germany, <bjoekroe@gmx.de> and Department of Geological Sciences, Ohio University, Athens 45701, <mapes@ohio.edu>

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

	INTRODUCTION

 
READING THE voluminous lists of synonymy of the taxa described in this report, it may seem useless at first glance to add yet more descriptions and potentially continue an already confused situation. However, as taxonomists know, long lists of synonymy may indicate that certain taxa serve as a "garbage-can" for specimens which lack distinctive morphological features. An example of a "garbage-can taxon" is the pseudorthoceratid genus Mooreoceras Miller, Dunbar, and Condra, 1933, which originally was very broadly defined and therefore comprised about 40 species.

Unfortunately, once the type of such a taxon with a very simple or "basic" morphology is widely known, repeatedly examples of poorly preserved specimens may be referred to it, thereby expanding it unnaturally, exemplifying the "garbage-can taxon" effect. In cephalopods, the orthocerid Michelinoceras Foerste, 1932 provides a good example. The type of the genus has been well known since the works of Ristedt (1968) and Serpagli and Gnoli (1977). Now the genus includes more than 180 species, which are, for the most part, established on very poorly preserved and very poorly known specimens. Thus, finding order in a "garbage-can taxon" may resemble the unending task of Sisyphus.

Several species discussed in this paper have either been assigned to such broadly defined taxa or may even define the type of such a taxon. These species belong to the most common and widespread cephalopods in the Carboniferous of North America. They represent the characteristic Carboniferous orthocerids. Finally, one genus described herein, Pseudorthoceras Girty, 1911, is the type for the fairly well-known high-rank taxon Pseudorthocerataceae (see Sweet, 1964, p. K242). Consequently, a more realistic taxonomic placement of these taxa is of central interest not only for improved future work on orthocerids, but also for the understanding of the evolution of Carboniferous marine faunas in . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				B. KROGER, M. S. BERESI, and E. LANDING EARLY ORTHOCERATOID CEPHALOPODS FROM THE ARGENTINE PRECORDILLERA (LOWER MIDDLE ORDOVICIAN) Journal of Paleontology, November 1, 2007; 81(6): 1266 - 1283. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]