A UNIQUE OCCURRENCE OF SCHIZOPHORIA (KING, 1850) IN LOWER GIVETIAN STRATA OF EASTERN NY

A unique occurrence of the brachiopod Schizophoria (King 1850) occurs at several localities in the lower Givetian strata in eastern NYS. A preliminary examination of the brachiopod was undertaken to attempt to determine what species are present in eastern New York. Goldring listed Schizophoria cf. striatula (Girty 1900) from Albany and Greene counties. From this, we examined descriptions of Schizophoria from various occurrences in eastern North America. Some occurrences for this species were reported from Upper Devonian strata in the Appalachian Basin. Middle Devonian reports of Schizophoria are most abundant from the Michigan Basin.

Stigall Rode conducted the most recent examination of species of the genus Schizophoria from the Devonian of eastern North America. In this work, she synonymized various species of Schizophoria along with redescribing various forms from across the Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and Appalachian basins. In this report, Stigall Rode mentioned S. striatula in a discussion on the paleoecology of Schizophoria but did not list it as a recognized species in her list of the genus, though she did include many other species of Schizophoria.

We measured specimens of Schizophoria from the upper Schizophoria fauna interval in eastern New York from Lapla in Ulster County for width, length, and number of ribs per given width on the exterior of the shells for comparison with descriptions from Imbrie and Stigall Rode. From the data, it appears that specimens of Schizophoria from eastern New York from the upper Schizophoria fauna interval are rather large overall, with some variation in size from about 20 mm to over 40 mm in width, and all specimens examined have the same number of exterior ribs/mm, no matter of size of the specimen. Comparison of our specimens to all Middle Devonian species of Schizophoria suggest those from eastern NYS are most likely S. impressa (Hall, 1867).