Family Serpulidae (Polychaeta, Sedentaria) from the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin.
Abstract
This paper deals with the Serputidae BURMEISTER from the Bohemian Creatceous Basin , a family which has not yet been studied in Czechoslovakia in great detail. Some species were described in papers by A. FRIC (1870-1911], others were recorded in various faunal lists. The members of the family Serpulidae BURMEISTER coming from most varied sediments of the Bohemian Cretaceous are shown to belong to 21 genera, out of which one is a new generic specimen, and to 49 species, of which 19 are new. Detailed studies on serpulid worms from Czechoslovak territory have hitherto been made only by F. PRANTL (1948), who paid attention to their occurrences in the Paleozoic, and by P. GTYROKY (1959), who examined the species Ditrupacornea (LINNAEUS) from the Tertiary of southern Moravia. Three thousand specimens were gathered to study the serpulids from the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin, but only 311 are complete; the other materials are fragments. I had also the opportunity to examine the collections of the National Museum, Prague, the Museum in Moravska Trebova, Podebrady and Turnov, and the Faculty of Natural Science Charles University, Prague. The tubes of the family Serpulidae BURMEISTER occur in the Bohemian Cretaceous from the marine Cenomanian (Inoceramus pictus Zone) to the Coniacian (1. involutus Zone) No serpulid worms have yet been found: in the Upper Coniacian (1. subguadratus Zone) and Santonian (1. undu-loplicatus Zone)-M. MALKOVSKY et al. (1974). Serpulid worm tubes are most abundant in calcareous-clayeys and stone and marlstone, calcareous-clay in terrestitial matter or conglomerate, clay organodetrital limestone of a Lower Turonian surf zone, and also in similar Cenomanian rocks as well as calcareous sandstone to sandy limestone of Middle Turonian age. In the other sediments serpulid worms occur to a lesser degree or are rare. In most cases the tubes are well preserved spatially, but are fragmentary in 90 percent of all cases, owing especially to an original mechanical disturbance of the shells, diagenetic processes and sometimes chemical corrosion (migration of elements). The tubes consist of calcite