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Journal of Paleontology

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Review of Scolecodonts Assigned to Arabellites, Based on Hinde's (1879) Type Material

¹ Department of Geology, GeoBiosphere Science Centre, Lund University, Sölvegatan 12, SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden, <Mats.Eriksson@geol.lu.se>

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

S COLECODONTS ARE the mouth pieces of jaw-bearing polychaete annelid worms that occur in abundance as microfossils in the fossil record. Historical scolecodont collections (e.g., Hinde, 1879, 1880, 1882; Stauffer, 1933, 1939; Eller, 1934, 1936, 1940, 1942) are of crucial importance for the taxonomy of fossil polychaetes because they often include taxa with nomenclatural priority over more recently established ones. One significant problem, however, is that most publications dealing with these collections have rudimentary hand-drawings of the fossils that do not allow unambiguous identifications. In this study, all specimens assigned to Arabellites by Hinde (1879) have been re-examined and photographed. Over the years Arabellites has been used for a plethora of morphologically variable scolecodonts of uncertain taxonomic affinity, rendering its status questionable (e.g., Kielan-Jaworowska, 1962, 1966; Kozur, 1970; Jansonius and Craig, 1971; Szaniawski and Wrona, 1973; Eriksson and Bergman, 2003). However, first-hand studies of the type material have allowed new discussions of this genus. Moreover, Glycerites Hinde, 1879, is briefly discussed as it proved to be intimately linked to Arabellites.

	ARABELLITES AND THE NAME-BEARING TYPE

 
The genus Arabellites was established by Hinde (1879) in his paper on Paleozoic, predominantly Ordovician and Silurian, scolecodonts from Canada and Scotland. In the description, Hinde (1879, p. 377) noted that "I propose to include in this genus jaws of widely different form, which have a general resemblance to those of the existing genus Arabella Grube." The nomenclatural use of already existing generic names of extant polychaetes with the addition of the suffix -ites, for fossil ones, was not uncommon by Hinde and his contemporaries. It has, however, been criticized (e.g., Sylvester, 1959; Kielan-Jaworowska, 1966) because it causes confusion and implies phylogenetic relationships that do not necessarily exist. . . . [Full Text of this Article]