AUSTRALIAN CAINOZOIC (TERTIARY) DEPOSITS. 67 but the recent species mentioned above are good forms, and are linked on to those of the Cretaceous rocks and Oolites by the Aus- tralian and New-Zealand species. It is this species, taken with the Holaster and Micraster of the fauna and the Dysasteroid arrange- ment in Rhynchopygus, that gives the Cretaceous facies to part of the Echinodermal fauna of the Australian Cainozoic strata. Pygorhynchus Vassali, Wright. This species is figured by Dr. Wright in his essay on the Maltese Echinoderms (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xx. pi. xxii. fig. 6) ; and the Australian form cannot be distinguished from it. The periproct is longitudinal in the specimens from both localities ; and there is no floscelle. The genus is essentially Tertiary ; but Forbes described one which is probably a Cassidulus from the Indian Cretaceous beds. Its species are numerous, and have been found in the Eocene of France and Biarritz, in the Miocene of Corsica and Malta, in the Eocene of Georgia, and in the Miocene of Jamaica. It is not repre- sented in the Recent faunas. Catopygus elegans, Laube (op. cit. p. 190). This species has a concave actinal surface and a kind of plastron on the same surface posteriorly. These are unusual ; and the shape is like that of PygorhyncJius. The figure given by Laube resembles a Catopygus. This genus, so Cretaceous in Europe, thus appears to have lived in the Australian seas during the Miocene age and to have become extinct, unless it merged into PygorhyncJius, its near ally in structure. Its nearest ally in point of resemblance and locality is Catopygus sulcatellus, Stoliczka (Cret. Echin. of Southern India, p. 26). Holaster Australia, nobis. This most interesting form has of course the Dysasterian genital arrangement ; and the pairs of pores are rather remote. The anterior furrow is very slightly marked at the ambitus, and is lost inferiorly. The test is rather pointed posteriorly. Hence the species is, as it were, between Holaster caudatus and //. indicus — the former from the Lower Cretaceous of the Caucasus, and the latter from the Upper or Middle Cretaceous of Southern India. The genus has not previously been found in Tertiary deposits. Maretia anomala, nobis, is a very fine form of this Spatangoid genus, and is in every respect but one like Maretia planidata, Gray, of the China seas, West-Indian Islands, and Mauritius ; it has, in addition to the usual shape and ornamental characters, an extremely delicate and threadlike fasciole just above the ambitus. It is ap- parently not continuous, and is a lateral one. So small is it that I doubt the propriety of placing the form so closely resembling Maretia in all other peculiarities in another genus. The genus is essentialy a Eecent one, and is closely allied to the Tertiary Spatangoids. EuPATAGUS ROTUNDTJS, nobis. The genus Eupatagus has four well-marked distinct species in f2
Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 33.djvu/97
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
AUSTRALIAN CAINOZOIC (TERTIARY) DEPOSITS.
67