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Bryozoa
Turbicellepora coronopus (Wood, 1844)
Nomenclature
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Family: CelleporidaeGenus: Turbicellepora
- paralectotype: B.M.(N.H.) Palaeont. Dept. B1605
- lectotype: B.M.(N.H.) Palaeont. Dept. B1606
- paralectotype: B.M.(N.H.) Palaeont. Dept. D37768
- paralectotype: B.M.(N.H.) Palaeont. Dept. D37767
SUMMARY
Colonies are ramose, with thick branches (up to 4 mm diameter in the lectotype), or form small nodular encrustations, and comprise multiple, irregularly arranged, frontally budded zooids. The ancestrula and early astogenetic stages seemingly have not been described.
Autozooids are ovoidal in frontal outline, 0.6-0.7 mm long by 0.4-0.5 mm wide (fide Hayward 1978, p. 575), overgrown to varying degrees by new buds on the colony surface. The frontal shield is cryptocystal, strongly convex, smooth and fringed by small areolar pores but imperforate centrally. The orifice has a deep V-shaped sinus, occupying slightly less than one-third of total orifice length, and is about 0.10 mm in both length and width. Oral spines and other spinose processes are lacking. Seldom preserved in fossils, ovicells are globular, with the ectooecium perforated by up to a dozen scattered pores (fide Hayward 1978).
An adventitious avicularium occurs suborally, typically lateral to the sinus. This is often abraded, exposing the large avicularian chamber on the frontal shield of the autozooid. The rostrum is semielliptical or triangular, often inclined, and is oriented more or less laterally with respect to the axis of the autozooid. The cross bar is calcified. Larger interzooidal avicularia occur scattered among the autozooids. These are broadly spatulate, with a deep, shelf-like palate and a calcified cross bar containing a slender outgrowth (columella). The drop-shaped rostrum is 0.3-0.5 mm long (fide Hayward 1978).