Slapylitidae: a new family of hyolithids (Cambrian–?Devonian; Baltica, Laurentia, Gondwana)

Abstract

Hyoliths are usually preserved as isolated skeletal elements consisting of conch, operculum, and helens. The occurrence of a conch associated with an operculum is ordinarily exceptional, and the co-occurrence of helens with other skeletal parts is a great rarity. The extraordinary finds of hyolithid conchs associated with opercula in situ are relatively abundant in the Cambrian and Ordovician clastic sediments of the Barrandian area in the Czech Republic. The platyclaviculate operculum with clavicles divided by longitudinal walls into channels characterizes members of the newly established family Slapylitidae fam. nov., which includes two genera: Slapylites Marek, 1980 known from the mid-Cambrian of West Gondwana and Baltica and Nevadalites Marek, 1976 documented from the Late Cambrian of Laurentia. To this family most probably belongs also an operculum from the Cambrian Series 2–Series 3 boundary of North Greenland and poorly known material from the Middle Devonian of Bolivia.