Treasure with blood: On the discovery of Traumatocrinus (Echinodermata, Triassic) crowns in China

摘要

A team of three paleontologists led by the important Triassic worker Te-You Hsu were killed in Guizhou during a field mapping project in 1944. A.T. Mu studied Hsu's crinoid collection and named a new species Traumatocrinus hsui after him in 1949. The first edition of crinoid Treatise did not acknowledge Mu's work and placed Traumatocrinus as junior synonym of Encrinus. However, it is now regarded as a valid taxon in the new edition published in 2011. During this study, original specimens reported by Mu were re-examined. Among them, 21 specimens survived to this day, and the rest of specimens mentioned in Mu were lost during the Second World War. The collection is illustrated with modern standards for the first time. Despite the hard working conditions endured by the Chinese workers during and shortly after the Second World War, this collection, including eleven slabs of crowns, one cup, eight columnals, and one holdfast curated in Nanjing, is the basis for family Traumatocrinidae. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. and Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, CAS. All rights reserved.