AULACOPLEURID TRILOBITES FROM THE UPPER ORDOVICIAN OF VIRGINIA

Abstract

Abstract Five species of aulacopleurid trilobites occur in rich, silicified trilobite faunas from the Upper Ordovician of Virginia: Harpidella triloba (Hu, 1975a), Strasburgaspis cona (Hu, 1971), and Strasburgaspis? n. sp. A, all from the Turinian Edinburg Formation, Harpidella whittingtoni new species, from the overlying Turinian Oranda Formation, and Harpidella evitti new species, from the Chatfieldian Martinsburg Formation. The species of Harpidella, similar to other sets of congeneric taxa known from the formations, are subtly but pervasively differentiated. In addition to qualitative differentia such as the expression of the eye socle and of pygidial tubercle rows, the species are shown to differ in cranidial and librigenal shape via landmark-based geometric morphometric analysis. The genus Strasburgaspis (type species S. cona) is new. It is assigned to Aulacopleuridae on the basis of its micropygous morphology, but it shares potential apomorphies with Brachymetopidae and could prove to be the most p...