The purported record of an epibiontic rhabdopleurid in the early Ordovician Fezouata biota of Morocco, with a discussion about benthic pterobranchs (Hemichordata) in the Lagerstätte

Abstract

The recent record of extremely rare rhabdopleurid graptolites with a supposed epibiontic life style in the Fezouata biota has to be rejected, as the specimens indicate an epibenthic growth on a shell fragment lying on the sea bottom. In absence of morphological data that support a truly colonial development on these encrusters, it cannot be ruled out that the specimens may alternatively represent the pseudo-colonial tubaria of cephalodiscid-like pterobranchs. The interpretation of the presence of benthic graptolites (class Pterobranchia; subclass Graptolithina) from the Fezouata Shale biota of Morocco provides us with some serious problems. Their life style as benthic or epibenthic organisms living on firm substrates and hardgrounds makes it difficult for them to be preserved in these highly fossiliferous, originally ‘soupy’ soft sediments of the Fezouata Shale, unless they are transported and covered by sediment subsequently. The graptolite record of the Fezouata biota appears to be restricted to planktic forms of Graptoloidea: the review of the few benthic dendroids so far cited for the Lagerstätte resulted in the identification of the rare planktic dendroid genus Calyxdendrum. The problematic species Webbyites felix may represent a hydrozoan (Cnidaria) rather than a benthic graptolite.