Tube-dwelling polychaetes from the Korytnica Basin (Middle Miocene; Holy Cross Mountains, Central Poland)

Abstract

The assemblage of tube-dwelling polychaetes from the Korytnica Basin (Middle Miocene; Holy Cross Mountains, Central Poland) comprises 25 taxa recognized at their species or genus level. Of these, the nine species are established as new, viz. Hydroides vesicularis sp.n., Hydroides vicinalis sp.n., Cementula rugosa sp.n., Cementula verrucifera sp.n., Placostegus echinatus sp.n., Spirorbis circuliferus sp.n., Pileolaria inflata sp.n., Pileolaria korytnicensis sp.n., and Janua miocaenica sp.n. Within the whole assemblage, indicated is the presence of the taxa referrable either to the present-day (and extant) or to the Upper Cretaceous genera, what indicates that the investigated Middle Miocene (Badenian) assemblage reveals the phyletic relations both to the Late Mesozoic as well as to the modern polychaete faunas. Of the taxa belonging to the family Serpulidae RAFINESQUE, 1815, some are assigned to the genus Semivermilia TEN HOVE, 1975, which has not as yet been recorded from the fossil state, the same as the genera Protolaeospira PIXELL, 1912, and Janua SAINT-JOSEPH, 1894, of the family Spirorbidae PILLAI, 1970. To the recently revised, present-day spirorbid genera assigned are some formerly well established species, the taxonomy of which is proposed as Pileolaria decIivis (REUSS, 1860) and Janua heliciformis (ElCHWALD, 1830), although the latter does not occur in the Korytnica Basin.