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Conical Thecae of Precambrian Macroorganisms

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Abstract

On the basis of new extensive collections, made by the present authors, a group of unsegmented three-dimensional fossil remains from the Late Precambrian of Namibia and the southeastern White Sea area, including such genera as Protechiurus, Vendoglossa, and Vendoconularia, were restudied. It is established that the fossils belong to two morphologically close genera (Protechiurus and Vendoconularia), composing the new family Protechiuridae. It is possible that they represent the same genus or even species, but the incompleteness of the preservation of the Namibian member of the group prevents their integration. The fossils initially represented conical hollow elastic objects, hexagonal in the cross-section, which were open at the wide end and closed at the pointed end. The sculpture of their surface consisted of longitudinal ridges, both single and double, bounding the rows of the short transverse ridges, scalloped along one margin. Vendoconularia had wide plates which were attached to the cone outwardly along the longitudinal unpaired ridges. In general morphology and several details the fossils resemble the thecae of conulariids and anabaritids, known from Late Precambrian and Paleozoic and classified as the scyphozoan cnidarians. The main difference lays in the theca mineralization, which consists of phosphate in conulariids, carbonate in anabaritids, and is absent in the case of protechiurids. It is proposed that the protechiurids, which appeared in the fossil record first, may belong to the basal group of ancient scyphozoans, ancestral to the conulariids on the one hand, and to the anabaritids on the other.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The studied samples are stored in the Geological Museum of the Geological Survey of Namibia (Windhoek) and in the Paleontological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences (PIN RAS). Photographs were made by S.V. Bagirov (PIN RAS). The field work and the preparation of the fossil material were carried out with the support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Grant no. 17-05-02212-a.

Funding

The laboratory and theoretical studies are supported by the grant for the fundamental research on the topic of the state assignment of PIN RAS, “The emergence of life, the formation of the biosphere, and the development of ancient biotas”. The work in Namibia was carried out as part of the International Geosciences Programs IGCP 493, 587and 673 and in part supported by several grants from the National Geographic Society and with the assistance of the Geological Survey of Namibia, especially the then Director Dr Gabi Schneider and with the field support of Charlie Hoffmann and local landowners Barbara and Brunо Boehm-Ernie, Lothar Gessart and Bernd and Lela Roemer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    A. Yu. Ivantsov & M. A. Zakrevskaya

  2. Monash University and Swinburne University of Techology, Melbourne, Australia

    P. Vickers-Rich

  3. School of EAE, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    M. Hall

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  1. A. Yu. Ivantsov
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  2. P. Vickers-Rich
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  3. M. A. Zakrevskaya
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  4. M. Hall
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Correspondence to A. Yu. Ivantsov.

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Translated by M. Zakrevskaya

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Ivantsov, A.Y., Vickers-Rich, P., Zakrevskaya, M.A. et al. Conical Thecae of Precambrian Macroorganisms. Paleontol. J. 53, 1134–1146 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0031030119110054

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