Upper Permian (Tatarian) Brachiopods from New Zealand

Abstract

Fifteen species of Brachiopoda are described from limestones of the Stephens Formation (lower Tatarian) and from the Wairaki Breccia (upper Tatarian) of New Zealand. The Stephens fauna represents the youngest known cold-water fauna of the Permian Gondwana realm. The fauna from the Wairaki Breccia, though definitely of Permian age, has a Mesozoic aspect in that it lacks members of the Productoidea and other suborders and families that elsewhere survived until the close of the Paleozoic era. Newly named taxa are Plekonella iniquitas n. sp., Wairakiella rostrata n. gen., n. sp. (family Wellerellidae), Martiniopsis patella n. sp., Ambikella furca n. sp., A. antesulcata n. sp., and Amygdalocosta rara n. gen., n. sp. (family Dielasmatidae).