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Acrhelia singleyi  


Bob Saunders

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I'd help please. The vendor showed me her monitor screen, showing the hard to read journal entries from the 1950's 1960's. The name shown seems like it should be spelled Astrhelia, not finding what singleyi means? Pictures of Astrhelia palmata Fossilized Coral  is a good match. 

 Eocene     Claiborne Formation.  Stone City, Texas   Age range: 33.9 to 11.608 Ma    11 mm long. 

20201230_164149 b.jpg

20201230_164345 b.jpg

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1 hour ago, Bob Saunders said:

I'd help please. The vendor showed me her monitor screen, showing the hard to read journal entries from the 1950's 1960's. The name shown seems like it should be spelled Astrhelia, not finding what singleyi means? Pictures of Astrhelia palmata Fossilized Coral  is a good match. 

 Eocene     Claiborne Formation.  Stone City, Texas   Age range: 33.9 to 11.608 Ma    11 mm long. 

Oculina singleyi Vaughan 1900 belongs to the same family as the genis Acrhelia. 

https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/5463/SCtZ-0514-Lo_res.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Life's Good!

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The specimen is Archohelia (Oculina) singleyi.

 

I have a couple from Whiskey Bridge around here somewhere. Middle Eocene Clairborne Group Invertebrate Fossils from Stone City Bluff, Burleson County, Texas (John and Barbara Emerson) lists the taxonomy as Archohelia singleyi (Vaughan, 1900).

1900 Oculina singleyi (Vaughan)

1941 Archohelia Singleyi (Caughan)

 

 

Vaughan, Thomas Wayland. 1900. The Eocene and lower Oligocene coral faunas of the United States, with descriptions of a few doubtfully Cretaceous species. United States Geological Survey Monograph 39, 263 pp., 24 pls. (as linked above)

 

This is the other paper cited where Vaughan calls it Archohelia with some new species.

Vaughan, Thomas Wayland. 1941. New Corals: One Recent, Alaska: Three Eocene, Alabama and Louisiana. Journal of Paleontology, vol 15, no. 3, pp. 280-284, pls. 40 and 41.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1298894?read-now=1&seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents

 

arco.png.f6f0b8a2da7c9170c127f7d29dc5824b.png

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5 hours ago, Bob Saunders said:

not finding what singleyi means?

The specific name "singleyi" is an honorific naming indicating that it was named after some guy (it's a masculine ending) named "Singley". I did a little searching online to see if I could figure out who this might be but reached a bit of a dead end. I did find a Google Books reference showing when the genus Archohelia was created and changed the genus name from the previous Oculina.

 

Archohelia.jpg

 

Several species of Oculina corals still grow in the tropical western Atlantic often found in deeper waters and sometimes creating huge Oculina shoals. Here are a couple of small Oculina diffusa colonies from the Caribbean (Dominican Republic). This will give you some idea what these branching corals would have looked like in life.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

ODIF1.jpg     ODIF2.jpg


 

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Yup. And that would be why this genus was separated from Oculina way back when.

 

To get an idea what an axial corallite looks like the species Acropora cervicornis (Acropora = "acro-" highest/on top + "pora" pore/polyp) has very distinctive axial polyps which are often white where the growing calcium carbonate can easily be seen without a coating of the endosymbiotic zooxanthellae algae which turns the rest of the colony a light tan.

 

P9270304.jpg

 

You'll see (if you look closely) at this colony of Oculina diffusa that the radial polyps bud-off at an angle spiraling around the branch but there is no axial polyp at the very tip. And that is now a whole lot more than most folks care to know about corals. :P I did coral reef research for over two decades and I'm packed with useless trivia. ;)

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

P9270204.jpg

 

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Bah, external morphology. It is just the beginning in corals. It's really of no use most of the time.
Skeletal morphology, that's the question.
In any case, knowing is never useless. Useless is ignorance.

As I have already said, those interested in corals are a small and select group on another level. Not on a better level just on a different level. I mean really interested, not just anyone.B)

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8 minutes ago, oyo said:

Skeletal morphology, that's the question.

Indeed. Lots to argue at this level. And then you can bring in DNA (for extant corals) to really get the conversation going. ;)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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Don't know if that makes things easier or harder. DNA raises more questions and uncertainties than it solves quite often.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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Now I'm confused as always. Since the images show axial coralite it rules out oculina type corals? So which is the proper name for my corals? Thanks

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Your genus (Archohelia) was split from Oculina earlier (see reference above) because of the axial polyp. ;)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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23 minutes ago, digit said:

Your genus (Archohelia) was split from Oculina earlier (see reference above) because of the axial polyp. ;)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

yes I did read that so adding new microscope images helps. 

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