Tube-dwelling polychaetes from some Upper Cretaceous sequences of Poland

Abstract

The tube-dwelling polychaetes are recognized to have been the relatively very rare elements in some, otherwise much fossiliferous, intervals of the Upper Cretaceous sequences in Poland. Their occurrence was confined to shallow, or extremely shallow-water biotopes that developed either at the mid-Cretaceous transgressive onlap, some further transgressive pulses including, or at the Late Cretaceous (latest Maastrichtian) regression. A systematic account presents 17 taxa belonging to 12 genera: Cycloserpula PARSCH, 1956; Protula RISSO, 1826; Proliserpula REGENHARDT, 1961; Rotularia DEFRANCE, 1827; Ditrupa BERKELEY, 1835; Pentaditrupa REGENHARDT, 1961; Filogranula LANGERHANS, 1884; Vepreculina REGENHARDT, 1961; Sclerostyla MÖRCH, 1863; Hamulus MORTON, 1834; Placostegus PHILIPPI, 1844; and Orthoconorca JÄGER, 1983; whose only few representatives have formerly been reported in Poland. Of such the latter forms, one species, formerly referred to as Serpula proteus (J. DE C. SOWERBY), is herein established as new, Rotularia (Praerotularia) marcinowskii sp.n. Moreover, indicated is the presence of the hydroids Protulophila gestroi ROVERETO, 1901, living as a symbiont to some specimens of Proliserpula ampullacea (J. DE C. SOWERBY, 1829), Pentaditrupa subtorquata (MÜNSTER in GOLDFUSS, 1831), and Sclerostyla macropus (J. DE C. SOWERBY, 1829).