Family PSEUDOAULOPHACIDAE Riedel, 1967

sensu De Wever et al. (2001)

Pseudoaulophacidae Riedel, 1967a: 148; 1967b: 295; 1971: 654- 655. — Pessagno 1972: 296-297 ( sensu emend.); 1977b: 932. — Nakaseko et al. 1975: 169. — Nakaseko & Sugano 1976: 126. — Foreman 1978: 744. — Kozur & Mostler 1978: 155. — Dumitrica 1979: 25; 1997: 212-214. — Schaaf 1984: 49. — Sanfilippo & Riedel 1985: 593-594. — Carter et al. 1988: 43. — O’Dogherty 1994: 315. — Dumitrica 1995: 26. — Kiessling 1999: 39. — Amon 2000: 45. — De Wever et al. 2001: 143-144. — Afanasieva et al. 2005: S286. — Afanasieva & Amon 2006: 128.

Pentapyloniinae Dumitrica in De Wever, Dumitrica, Caulet, Nigrini & Caridroit, 2001: 146 . — Afanasieva et al. 2005: S286. — Afanasieva & Amon 2006: 128.

Pseudoaulophacinae – De Wever et al. 2001: 144, 146 ( sensu emend.).— Afanasieva et al. 2005: S286. — Afanasieva & Amon 2006: 128.

TYPE GENUS. — Pseudoaulophacus Pessagno, 1963: 200 [type species by objective designation: Pseudoaulophacus floresensis Pessagno, 1963: 200].

INCLUDED GENERA (CENOZOIC ONLY). — Pentapylonium Dumitrica, 1991: 37 .

DIAGNOSIS. — Spongy discoidal spumellarians with surface completely or partially covered by a meshwork of equilateral triangular frames. The microsphere is shaped like triangular prism with 3 primary rays originating from its lateral edges.

STRATIGRAPHIC OCCURRENCE. —early Early Miocene-Early Pliocene.

REMARKS

The internal skeletal structure of Pentapylonium was already illustrated (Dumitrica 1991: pl. 5, figs 1-9; pl. 6, figs 1-9; pl. 7, figs 1-7). As reporting of Pentapylonium implicatum is limited to the upwelling regions off Peru, Oman and Somali (Nigrini & Caulet 1992), this family can rarely be observed in other regions. The overall appearance of Sphaeropylolena ( Pylodiscidae) is similar to that of Pentapylonium, but the former fundamentally differs from the latter by the presence of a pylodiscid center (Zhang & Suzuki 2017: 38).