KNOB NOSTER: A NEW UPPER CARBONIFEROUS (PENNSYLVANIAN) LAGERSTÄTTE IN MISSOURI CONTAINING MILLIPEDS (DIPLOPODA), INSECTS, CRUSTACEANS, VERTEBRATES, PLANTS, AND OTHER TERRESTRIAL AND BRACKISH WATER ORGANISMS

A diverse terrestrial and brackish water fauna is preserved within concretions found at a new Upper Carboniferous Lagerstätte at Knob Noster, Johnson County, Missouri. This is a near-surface deposit accidentally discovered by shallow bulldozing around 1990. It includes concretions in various states of preservation, ranging from extremely delicate to well indurated. Arthropods, including myriapods, crustaceans, and other groups, are well represented in the fauna. Myriapods in the fauna include a specimen of the oniscomorph (pill milliped) genus Archiscudderia, a first record for North America. Representatives of the genus were previously known only from the Gaskole of Nyrany in the Czech Republic. The milliped is preserved in dorsal view, but portions of the tergites are broken away exposing pleurites. Euphoberiid millipeds are the most common myriapods at the locality. Most of the euphoberiid specimens are fragmentary. The euphoberiids are preserved both in comma-shaped death position and in relaxed orientations. Other Arthropoda present in the fauna include ostracods, syncarid crustaceans (including Acanthotelson), xiphosurans (Euproops sp., cf. Valloisella), eurypterids, ricinuleids, scorpions, phalangiids, whip-scorpions, and insects. Brachiopods (including Orbiculoidea sp.), unidentified cone-shaped and segmented invertebrates, fish scales (in a variety of types and sizes, including those of lungfish), fish eggcases, the problematical Palaeoxyris (2 spp.), and plants (including fern foliage, plant axes, seeds, cones, and tree trunks) have also been found at the locality. The fauna is similar in some respects to the fauna previously described from Windsor, Missouri, which is located about 30 km south of Knob Noster. Based on the faunal components, Knob Noster is a deltaic or estuarine assemblage similar to that of the well known Braidwood fauna of the Mazon Creek, Illinois, area.