Joania cordata (Risso, 1826)

Dulai, A., 2013, Sporadic Miocene brachiopods in the Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Leiden, the Netherlands): Records from the Mediterranean, the North Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean, Fragmenta Palaeontologica Hungarica 30, pp. 15-51 : 42-44

Joania cordata (Risso, 1826)

(Figs 70–73)

Material – Amberre (3 specimens).

Size (mm) –

Length 3.1 2.6 2.2

Width 2.7 3.1 2.7

Notes – Joania was proposed recently by ALVAREZ et al. (2008) for those Argyrotheca , which differ in their adult crural development, narrow hinge line, prominent cardinal process, characteristic dorsal median septum and their tuberculate radial ridges, which terminate anteriorly in tubercles. Joania is known to have been present since the Eocene ( SIMON 2010).

DE MORGAN (1915) described some smooth or very weakly ribbed Cistella (= Argyrotheca ) species from the Miocene sediments of France (faluns of Touraine): C. laevigata , C. mariae , C. plicata , C. pontileviensis , C. falunica , C. eugenii , C?. transversa. However, C. laevigata and C. mariae later were synonymised with J. cordata by BITNER (1990) and her opinion is accepted and followed here. The author had the opportunity to check syntypes of C. laevigata and C. mariae in the Natural History Museum in Paris (in the framework of a Synthesys project, FR-TAF-4689), which confirms BITNER’s (1990) opinion. Therefore, all of those specimens from Amberre, which were identified in NBC collections as C. mariae and C. laevigata , are revised here as J. cordata . The specimens previously labelled as C. mariae (Figs 71–73) are clearly belonging to J. cordata . The specimen labelled as C. laevigata (Fig. 70) is a more eroded specimen but the row of marginal tubercles can be detected even in this preservational condition. JULIEN (1940) described a Vindobonian brachiopod fauna from Sain-Fons (Rhône valley, France), including a possible new species, “ Cistella nov. sp. groupe de C. laevigata de Morgan ”. Although it is similar to J. cordata (which is also present in the material from Sain-Fons, described as Cistella neapolitana by JULIEN, 1940: pl. 4, figs 14–18), its tubercles along the lateral and anterior margins are less numerous and larger in size. This way it may represent a different species closely related to J. cordata .

J. cordata is one of the most common micromorphic brachiopods in the Miocene shallow water sediments of the Central Paratethys (see e.g. BITNER

1990; BITNER & DULAI 2004; BITNER & KAIM 2004; DULAI 2007). It is also common in recent Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean (e.g. LOGAN 1979; 1983). Recently it was recognised in the Oligocene of the Central Paratethys ( DULAI 2010 b) as well as in the Oligocene of France ( BITNER et al. 2013).