Phacops Vs Eldredgeops
The popular collected trilobite Phacops rana is well embedded in literature for over a hundred years. Then in 1990 it was renamed Eldredgeops rana. A lot of collectors did not understand why the name change and I would like to attempt to clarify why the change.
The purpose of this post is to point out the differences I have observed between Phacops and Eldredgeops and explain why "rana" is an Eldredgeops and not a Phacops. The literature on phacopid systematics is in a mild state of disarra
The name change of Phacops rana to Eldredgeops rana may not be the end of the story. At the fossil picnic I showed you Basse's (2006) monograph on the phacopids, there were a lot of genera you could see in the tribe Geesopini that look like "rara." A revision of the Geesopini could result in Eldredgeops becoming a junior objective synonym of an another genus and have another name change.