Revision of the plectorthoid brachiopod Platystrophia dentata (Pander, 1830) from the Middle Ordovician of the East Baltic

摘要

Due to the scanty description of Porambonites dentata Pander, 1830 and loss of its single type specimen, the name dentata has been subsequently attributed to various Ordovician to Silurian species of the genus Platystrophia s.l. with two costae in the sulcus and three on the fold. In The Natural History Museum, London, there is a complete shell identified presumably by Christian Pander himself as Spirifer dentatus from Pulkowa. That specimen is selected here as neotype to Platystrophia dentata, i.e. to a species, which on the basis of new material is restricted to the lower Darriwilian in the St Petersburg region. Considering differences in the interior of the dorsal valve, the other species (some with subspecies) of the so-called dentata-group, especially from the stratigraphically younger strata, are discussed and excluded from the material described here of P. dentata.