You are here
Bryozoa
Entalophoroecia deflexa (Couch, 1842)
Nomenclature
-
Family: PlagioeciidaeGenus: Entalophoroecia
- lectotype: B.M.(N.H.) Palaeont. Dept. B1637
- paralectotype: B.M.(N.H.) Palaeont. Dept. D6921e
- paralectotype: B.M.(N.H.) Palaeont. Dept. B6921
- paralectotype: B.M.(N.H.) Palaeont. Dept. D6921a
- paralectotype: B.M.(N.H.) Palaeont. Dept. D38425
SUMMARY
Colonies are erect, vincularian, with bifurcating cylindrical branches, often clavate and 0.5-2.0 mm in diameter, arising from an encrusting base consisting of bifurcating oligoserial branches. Autozooids open all the way around the circumference of the erect branches. According to Hayward & Ryland (1985, p. 114), the ancestrula has a flat, almost circular protoecium, 0.18-0.24 mm in diameter, with a peripheral ring of pseudopores. The first budded zooid is a normal distal bud from the ancestrula; there are no adventitious buds.
Autozooids are fixed-walled with long frontal walls increasing in convexity distally and giving way to a peristome inclined at a low angle to the colony surface. Maximum frontal wall width is approximately 0.25 mm. Psueudopores are longitudinally elliptical with small spines growing inwards from their edge. Apertures are large, longitudinally elliptical, up to 0.20 mm in transverse diameter.
The gonozooid, as described from Recent British material (Hayward & Ryland 1985, p 113), is extensive, enveloping the branch and penetrated by numerous autozooidal peristomes. The ooeciostome is situated in the middle or close to the distal edge of the gonozooid, near the base of a peristome, cylindrical and terminates in an ooeciopore significantly smaller than an autozooidal aperture and measuring about 0.08-0.12 mm in diameter.