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"Pirouline's" LIKE CORAL FOSSIL ID


LONGOF

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Hi colleagues and friends,

 

I have been findind and often collecting tose eye catching elongated fossil corals on the Hispaniola island, like "Pirouline's rolled wafers".  They have a cavity inside on mostly case and have up to 3 inches diameter I guess.

 

As I'm not very familiar with these coral fossils, can you please help me to ID these fossilized corals and comment anything about the environment, ages, behaviors, occurrence, distribution, etc.

 

Thanks a lot for youn kindly help colleagues!

PIRULIN LIKE FOSSIL CORALS4.jpg

PIRULIN LIKE FOSSIL CORALS5.jpg

PIRULIN LIKE FOSSIL CORALS7.jpg

PIRULIN LIKE FOSSIL CORALS3.jpg

PIRULIN LIKE FOSSIL CORALS1.jpg

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I can't positively identify them, but they look like the tubes from tube worms. They may or may not be fossils.

http://www.google.com/search?q=straight+calcareous+tube+worm+shell&btnG=Search&hl=en&gbv=1&tbm=isch

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I think these are tubes formed by a type of burrowing bivalve.  Unfortunately I can't remember the name right off the top of my head.  They are definitely not corals.

 

Don

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Looks like Kuphus calcareous tubes, to me. Kuphus

Kuphus incrassatus was described as present in the Miocene of the Dominican Republic.

 

" We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. "

Thomas Mann

My Library

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Thanks for all your valuable help and comments, and also to Mr. Bluff comments.  I'm now more convinced that they belong to Kuphus sp

 

 

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I could imagine that there was not much interest in the past around the teredinids and probably that persist in recent times, but I don't want to disconsider their paleontological importance , so, I will write a few lines (not a simple copy-paste, but some nice corrections on the resulting text; try it).

 

Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands. VOLUME III - Part 1. Tertiary Mollusca from Porto Rico. C. J. Maury. 1920.

 

Page 45-46
"
Genus Teredo Linnaeus

Teredo incrassata (Gabb)

Kuphus incrassatus Gabb, 1873, Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc, XV, p. 246; 1881, Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phil., (2), VIII, p 342, PI. XLIV, figs. 12a-e.
Teredo fistula? Guppy, 1876, Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. London, XXXII, p. 529.
Teredo incrassata Dall, 1903, Trans. Wagner Inst. Sci., Ill, pt. 6, p. 1587.
Teredo incrassata Maury, 1917, Bull. Amer. Paleont., No. 29, p. 235, PI. XXXIX, fig. 24; Idem, No. 30, p. 25.
Kuphus incrassatus Vaughan, 1919, Bull. 103 U. S. Nat. Mus , p. 558.

 

Gabb first described the tubes of this Teredo from Guayubin, Santo Domingo. Later he found it was abundant and widespread in the Miocene of that island, throughout the Samba Hills and also south of Samana Bay. He states that, "it is a very common and characteristic fossil of the upper part of the Dominican Miocene."'
The writers party in Santo Domingo also collected Teredo incrassata in abundance. The tubes were seen loose along the roadside from Los Quemados to Caimito. They were several feet long and resembled the roots of trees. At Caimito they were present in the Teredo limestone and occurred at Cercado in Bluff 3. Thus this species ran through both the Sconsia laevigata and Aphera islacolonis formations.
Dall lists Teredo incrassata from Bowden, Jamaica, in the Simpson and Henderson collection. Its range is now extended to Porto Rico, where Reeds found it in great quantities and, as the list of localities shows, extremely wide spread.
Besides its distribution in the Miocene of these three islands of the Greater Antilles, Teredo incrassata was also identified by Gabb at Sapote on Rio Reventazon, Costa Rica.
It is of interest that although such large numbers of the tubes have been found, no valves have vet been discovered. The shell therefore remains unknown. The descriptions and identifications rest entirely upon the tubes. These are wrinkled with annular growth lines, often somewhat gnarled and may attain several feet in length and an inch and a quarter in diameter. Smaller portions of the tubes are frequently divided into two by an internal septum. "

 

Page 128

" The tubes vary in diameter, but average 20 mm. They attain considerable length, but are usually found broken in short pieces. "

 

Kuphus incrassatus Gabb 1873 (clam)

 

... and a few samples from Zammit Maempel, George. Kuphus melitensis, a new teredinid bivalve from the Late Oligocene Lower Coralline Limestone of Malta. Contr. Tert. Quatern. Geol., 30(3-4): 155-175, 7 figs, 1 tab., 3 pis. Leiden, December 1993.

 

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Hope these helps.


(last but not least, my appreciations to the authors)

" We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. "

Thomas Mann

My Library

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