Pseudotextulariella cretosa (Cushman, 1932)

Simmons, Michael, Bidgood, Michael, Consorti, Lorenzo & Schlagintweit, Felix, 2025, A Review Of The Identity And Biostratigraphy Of Cenomanian “ Larger ” Benthic Foraminifera: Part 2 - The Order Loftusiida (Excluding The Suborder Orbitolinina), Acta Palaeontologica Romaniae 21 (1), pp. 103-192 : 147-149

Pseudotextulariella cretosa (Cushman, 1932)

Figure 18

T 1932 Textulariella cretosa n. sp. – Cushman, p. 97-98; pl. 11, figs. 17-19; Cretaceous, southern England.

1937 Textulariella cretosa – Cushman, p. 61, pl. 6, figs. 26-28; Cretaceous, southern England.

1948 Textulariella cretosa – Williams-Mitchell, p. 97, pl. 8, fig. 1; early Cenomanian ( Schloenbachia varians Zone ), southern England.

1953 Pseudotextulariella cretosa (Cushman) – Barnard in Barnard & Banner, p. 198-199; fig. 6B-I; early Cenomanian ( Schloenbachia varians Zone ), southern England.

1963 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Barnard, p. 48-51, pl. 7, figs. 1-6, 8; text-figs. 6a-d, 7a-f, 8a-c; early Cenomanian ( Schloenbachia varians Zone ), southern England.

1964 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Loeblich & Tappan, fig. 202 (3-4); Cenomanian, southern England.

1965 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Charollais & Brönnimann, pl. 2, figs. a-b; pl. 3, figs. a-b; early Cenomanian ( Schloenbachia varians Zone ), southern England.

1966 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Grönhagen & Luterbacher, text-figs. 1-3; Cenomanian, Swiss Jura .

1966 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Brönnimann, pl. 3, figs. 1-2, 5; early Cenomanian ( Schloenbachia varians Zone ), southern England.

Non 1972 Pseudotextulariella sp. cf. P. cretosa – El-Naggar & Al-Rifaiy, fig. 5 (3-4); middle – late Cenomanian, Kuwait [simple biserial form].

1972 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Gawor-Biedowa, p. 34-35, pl. 3, figs. 4a-b; Cenomanian, Poland.

? 1975 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Heller, pl. 2, fig. 1; Cenomanian, Poland [poor external view only].

1977 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Carter & Hart, p. 23- 24, pl. 2, fig. 12; early – middle Cenomanian, southern England.

1980 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Frieg, p. 238, pl. 2, figs. 12-13; early – middle Cenomanian, northern Germany.

1983 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Peryt, p. 438, pl. 21, fig. 6; early – middle Cenomanian, Poland.

? 1983 Pseudotextulariella cf. cretosa – Schroeder & Willems, pl. 4, fig. 6; Cenomanian, northern Spain [indeterminate].

? 1985 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Weidich, pl. 4, fig. 2; early – middle Cenomanian, southern Germany [indeterminate].

1987 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Leary, p. 75, pl. 13, figs. 1-3; late Cenomanian, North Sea.

1989 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Hart et al., pl. 7.2; figs. 11-12; intra-early – middle Cenomanian, southern England.

1989 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Frieg, text-fig. 2, pl. 1, figs. 1-2, 4-11; intra-late Albian – intra-early Cenomanian, northern Germany.

1990 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Hart et al., figs. 3, l, o; intra-early – middle Cenomanian, southern England.

1991 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Packer, pl. 2, fig. 13; Cenomanian, Denmark.

? 1993 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Al-Rifaiy et al., pl. 1, fig. 8; late Cenomanian, Jordan [external view only].

1993 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Witte et al., pl. 2, figs. 8-9; middle Cenomanian, Netherlands.

1996 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Mitchell, pl. 1, figs. 9-10; early – middle Cenomanian, northern England.

? 1996 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Zghal et al., pl. 1, figs. 9-10; middle Albian (range given as middle – late Albian), Tunisia [uncertain external view only].

1998 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Mitchel & Carr, pl. 4, fig. 4; intra-early – middle Cenomanian, southern England.

2000 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Herngreen et al., pl. 3, fig. 82; middle Cenomanian, The Netherlands.

2002 Pseudotextulariella sp. – Császár, pl. 4, figs. 3-4; late Albian – early Cenomanian, Hungary [age is based on the presence of the genus].

2002 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Bucur & Baltres, p. 83-84, pl. 3, figs. 1-10, pl. 4, figs. 1-8; early Cenomanian, Dobrogea, Romania.

Non 2013 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Shahin & Elbaz, pl. 2, figs 1-2; Cenomanian, Sinai, Egypt [lacks complexity of internal architecture].

2021 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Besen et al., p. 424, fig. 8s; undifferentiated late Albian – (middle) Turonian, northern Germany.

2023 Pseudotextulariella cretosa – Schlagintweit & Yazdi-Moghadam, fig. 5m-n [specimens illustrated by Brönnimann, 1966].

Reference Images: Brönnimann (1966).

Taxonomy/Identity: This species was introduced by Cushman (1932) as Textulariella cretosa with a limited description from the Cretaceous Chalk of southern England. It was adopted by Barnard (in Barnard & Banner, 1953) as the type species for his new genus Pseudotextulariella . Further information was given by Barnard (1963), Charollais & Brönnimann (1965), Frieg (1989), Bucur & Baltres (2002), and Schlagintweit & Yazdi-Moghadam (2023).

Pseudotextulariella is subconical, early stage triserial (no trochospiral initial stage e.g., Loeblich & Tappan, 1987), later biserial with chambers subdivided by vertical and horizontal partitions (beans and rafters). The aperture is interiomarginal. A small embryo is present in a form called Pseudotextulariella sp. by Dufaure et al. (1984). Although probably of this genus, this specimen seems to fit with neither the morphology of P. cretosa or Pseudotextulariella brevicamerata Schlagintweit & Yazdi-Moghadam, 2023 (see also Pseudotextulariella sp. illustrated by Solak et al., 2020). An embryo is also possibly visible in the illustrations of P. cretosa by Grönhagen & Luterbacher (1966, fig. 2b).

P. cretosa is a distinctively large (up to 1.75 mm in test height and maximum diameter) and complex species with multiple orders of rafters (see Table 1 of Schlagintweit & Yazdi-Moghadam, 2023). Only two orders of beams appear to be present. However, some specimens are quite small – see Gawor-Biedowa (1972) who recorded dimensions of around 0.6 – 0.9 mm. Frieg (1989) considered that both simple, smaller, microspheric, and more complex, larger, macrospheric forms occurred. P. brevicamerata (see below) and Valanginian Pseudotextulariella courtionensis Bronnimann, 1966 are smaller and only have one order of rafters and reduced height of chamber lumen.

Other supposed species of Pseudotextulariella – Pseudotextulariella salevensis Charollais, Brönnimann & Zaninetti, 1966 , Pseudotextulariella scarsellai De Castro, 1963 , Pseudotextulariella subalpina Arnaud-Vanneau, 1980 and “ Pseudotextulariella barnardi ” Gollesstaneh, 1965 – can be assigned to other genera (see WoRMS online catalogue, Hayward et al., 2025; Schlagintweit, 2014). Pseudotextulariella sp. 1 of Chiocchini et al. (1994) from the late Cenomanian of Italy, is a simple biserial form, without the architectural complexity of the genus.

The holotype of P. cretosa (external view) has been re-illustrated by Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/search/ paleo/?ark=ark:/65665/3aaf1d197dc954c1680875acc558 00236) .

https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&i d=1045991

Confident Stratigraphic Range: Intra-late Albian – late Cenomanian (common in suitable facies within the intra-early – middle Cenomanian).

Uncertain Stratigraphic Range: middle Albian, Turonian – Coniacian.

A species whose range is highly facies-dependent. Supposedly (according to Barnard, 1963) the type specimens are from the Lower Chalk at Charing, Kent, England (early Cenomanian, Schloenbachia varians Zone ). Williams-Mitchell (1948) and Barnard & Banner (1953) considered the species a useful marker for this zone. In more recent research, Wilkinson & Hopson (2011) recognised the inception of P. cretosa as indicating foraminiferal Zone 9 of Carter & Hart (1977), UKB3 of Hart et al. (1989) and BGS 2 of Wilkinson (2011) which indicates a level close to the base of the dixoni Zone or high in the mantelli zone. Carter & Hart (1977) remarked that it “ occurs in large numbers in the lower levels of the Cenomanian ” but showed that the inception (base of their Zone 9) is intra-early Cenomanian (see also Hart et al., 1989).

Outside of chalk facies, the species is known from open marine marly facies of the intra-late Albian ( Frieg, 1989; Besen et al., 2021) and has been reported from the latest Albian of Switzerland by Grönhagen & Luterbacher (1966) but not illustrated. Magniez-Jannin (1983) reported it from the late Albian of northern France.

P. cretosa is said to range up to the near top middle Cenomanian of northern France (Amédro et al., 1978) but is not illustrated. Besen et al. (2021) reported it from the middle Turonian and further extended the range to the Coniacian (Besen et al., 2023) but without illustration. Reported but not illustrated from the late Cenomanian of the Czech Republic (Cech et al., 2005; Zitt et al., 2010). The last appearance datum is considered a marker horizon for middle Cenomanian in the North Sea ( King et al., 1989), but Leary (1987) found rare and small specimens in the late Cenomanian.

Geographic Distribution: The species is mostly known from the marls of the chalk facies from north-west Europe (southern England, northern France, northern Germany, Poland), but has been recorded, if seldom illustrated, from the northern margin of Neotethys in Switzerland ( Grönhagen & Luterbacher, 1966; Brönnimann, 1966), northern Spain ( Gräfe, 2005), the Czech Republic (Čech et al., 2005; Zitt et al., 2010), Hungary ( Görög, 1996; Császár, 2002) and Romania (Bucur & Baltres, 2002). It appears to be absent from the Mediterranean and Arabian Plate, notwithstanding some highly uncertain records (see synonymy list).

Pseudotextulariella brevicamerata Schlagintweit &

Figures

Fig. 18. Representative illustrations of Pseudotextulariella cretosa: a. Axial section, Bucur & Baltres (2002, pl. 3, fig. 1, Romania); b. Near axial section, Brönnimann (1966, pl. 3, fig. 1, southern England); c. Oblique tangential section, Bucur & Baltres (2002, pl. 3, fig. 9, Romania); d. Transversal section, Brönnimann (1966, pl. 3, fig. 2, southern England).