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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Volume 12, No. 10, pp. 475-501, 7 figs. October 25, 1963

A New Genus of Pennsylvanian Fish (Crossopterygii, Coelacanthiformes) from Kansas

JOAN ECHOLS

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE 1963

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, Henry S. Fitch, Theodore H. Eaton, Jr.

~Volume 12, No. 10, pp. 475-501, 7 figs.~ ~Published October 25, 1963~

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas

PRINTED BY JEAN M. NEIBARGER, STATE PRINTER TOPEKA, KANSAS 1963

A New Genus of Pennsylvanian Fish (Crossopterygii, Coelacanthiformes) from Kansas

JOAN ECHOLS

INTRODUCTION

In 1931 and 1932, H. H. Lane, C. W. Hibbard and W. K. McNown collected the specimens that Hibbard (1933) described and made the basis of two new species. These were from the Rock Lake shale member of the Stanton formation, six miles northwest of Garnett, Anderson County, Kansas. In 1954, from a locality (KAn-1/D, see page 480) approximately one fourth mile southwest of the first locality, specimens were quarried by F. E. Peabody, R. W. Wilson and R. Weeks. In 1955 R. R. Camp collected additional blocks of Rock Lake shale from this second locality. Study of all of the materials from the above mentioned localities reveals the existence of an hitherto unrecognized genus of coelacanth. It is named and described below.

I wish to thank Prof. Theodore H. Eaton, Jr., for suggesting the project and for much helpful advice. I am indebted to Dr. E. I. White of the British Museum (Natural History) for furnishing a cast of the endocranium of Rhabdoderma elegans (Newberry) for comparison, and to Drs. Donald Baird (Princeton University), Bobb Schaeffer (American Museum of Natural History) and R. H. Denison (Chicago Natural History Museum) for loans and exchanges of specimens for comparison. I am grateful to Dr. Bobb Schaeffer for advice on the manuscript. Mr. Merton C. Bowman assisted with the illustrations. The study here reported on was made while I was a Research Assistant supported by National Science Foundation Grant G-14013.

SYSTEMATIC DESCRIPTIONS

Subclass CROSSOPTERYGII

Superorder COELACANTHI

Order Coelacanthiformes

Suborder DIPLOCERCIDOIDEI

Family DIPLOCERCIDAE

Subfamily ~Rhabdodermatinae~, new subfamily

Type genus.--Rhabdoderma Reis, 1888, Paleontographica, vol. 35, p. 71.

Referred genus.--Synaptotylus new, described below.

Horizon.--Carboniferous.

Diagnosis.--Sphenethmoid region partly ossified, and consisting of basisphenoid, parasphenoid, and ethmoid ossifications; paired basipterygoid process and paired antotic process on basisphenoid; parasphenoid of normal size, and closely associated with, or fused to, basisphenoid; ethmoids paired in Rhabdoderma (unknown in Synaptotylus).

Discussion.--Because of the great differences in endocranial structure between the Devonian and Pennsylvanian coelacanths, they are here placed in new subfamilies. The two proposed subfamilies of the family Diplocercidae are the Diplocercinae and the Rhabdodermatinae. The Diplocercinae include those coelacanths having two large unpaired bones in the endocranium (at present this includes Diplocercides Stensioe, Nesides Stensioe and Euporosteus Jaekel). The subfamily Rhabdodermatinae is composed of coelacanths having reduced endocranial ossification, as described in detail above, and now including Rhabdoderma Reis and Synaptotylus n. g.