Mattheva, a Proposed New Class of Mollusks GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 523-B ., Mattheva, a Proposed New Class of Mollusks By ELLIS L. YOCHELSON CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEONTOLOGY GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 523-B A discussion of the biologic placement of the Late Cambrian fossil Matthevia UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON : 1966 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR STEWART L. UDALL, Secretary GEOLOGICAL SURVEY William T. Pecora, Director For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 - Price 25 cents CONTENTS. I Page Systematic paleontology-Continued Page ~bstract __________________________________________ _ B1 Genus Matthevia Walcott, 1885 __________________ _ B3 Introduction ______________________________________ _ 1 Matthevia variabilis Walcott, 1885 ________________ _ 3 ! Acknowledgments ________________ - __ ------------ 1 Reconstruction of Matthevia ___ ----------------------- 4 bccurrence and distribution of Matthevia ______ _____ - _-- 2 Matthevia as the representative of a class of mollusks ___ _ 8 fystema tic paleontology _____ -_------------------·-- -- 2 Pseudomatthevia _________ --------------------------- 8 1 Class Mattheva, new class ______________________ _ 2 References cited ____ -------------------------------- 9 Family Matthevidae Walcott, 1885 ______________ _ 3 Index ____________________________________________ _ 11 ILLUSTRATIONS [Plate follows index] Page 1. Photographs of Matthevia. 1. Sketch of anterior __________________________________________________________________________________ _ B3 2. Sketch of posterior __________________________________________________________________________________ _ 3 3. Sketches of reconstruction of Matthevia __ ________________________ - -------------------------------------- 6 III CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEONTOLOGY MATTHEVA, A PROPOSED NEW CLASS OF MOLLUSKS By ELLIS L. y OCHELSON ABSTRACT tropoda. In regard to the Pteropoda as used by him, Basic features of the hard parts of JJfa,tthevia Walcott sug­ Miller ( 1889, p. 389) stated, "It may well be doubted est that this fossil is a mollusk. Matthwl'ia, variabUis Wal­ whether or not any of the Palaeozoic fossils belong to ott, first described from the Late Cambrian Hoyt Lime,stone this order." Other authors of the late 1800's expressed ember of Theresa Dolomite near S'aratoga 8prings, N.Y., has similar reservations as to the occurrence of true Pte­ een found widespread throughout the western conterminous nited State~ in rocks of Trempealeau age. Walcott inter­ ropoda in Paleozoie strata. The Paleozoic "pteropods" vreted the preserved part of JJ!atthevia as a conical shell. The were a heterogeneous assemblage; the principal feature ~enuH is interpreted here as an animal having two hard parts. common to the various genera was the absence of char­ one anterior and one posterior. The presumed anterior pieee acters that would permit the genera to be placed readily fS elongate and contains two conspicuous cavities ; the pre­ into established classes and phyla. ~umed posterior piece is somewhat narrower and shorter but aJso contains two cavities. If this interpretation is correct, In the classie textbook by Zittel under the suborder the hard parts differ markedly from those of other mollusks. Pteropoda, family Hyolithidae, three genera are listed is proposed that JJ!atthevia is the sole known representative in addition to Hyolithes and its synonyms. These are f an extinct class here given the name Mattheva. Pterotheca, Phragnwtheca, and Jfatthev£a. Although Pseudomatthevin of Dresbach age is judged to be closely re­ ted to Hyp8eloconus and is provisionally transferred to the there is no discussion, the implication is obvious that onoplacophora. these three genera are all closely related and are all ~I INTRODUCTION associated with Hyolithes. In every revision and for­ eign-language edition of this work, the generic name 1 M atthevia variabilis Walcott is an enigmatic Cam­ is rendered as Jl,/ atthewia, a name which can only be pria~ fossil. The original description of the genus and fpec1es (vValcott, 1885) is excellent: it emphasizes the treated as an invalid emendation or a typographical ilnusual appearance of two cavities separated by a wide error. ~eptum within an otherwise massive subconical shell. l{night (1941, p. 20) declared: "11-fatthevia Walcott, 1885, a strange and ineomprehensible shell, seems more lw!.alcott placed this genus along with 10 others under he Pteropoda, doing this with "considerable reserva- likely to have belonged to some otherwise unknown ion," because "They form a group although representa­ class of the Mollusca or even to emne unknown phylum ive, in a measure, of the recent Pteropoda, differ in than to the Gastropoda." Two major references on pther respects so much that it appears as thouo·h a divi­ American fossils, Grabau and Shimer (1909) and ~ion of the Gastropoda, equivalent to the P~eropoda, Shi1ner and Shrock ( 1944) , do not list M atthevia. ~night be consistently made to receive them." The iden- Flower ( 1954, p. 81) suggested that this genus "is not cal. description, but. 'vith better illustrations, was re­ elosely similar to either the hyolithids, the tentaculitids, .nbhshed the follmnng year (vV alcott, 1886) without or the gastropods.'' Neither the French "Traite de ny comment about the biological position of the genus Pah~ontologie" (Piveteau, 1952) nor the Russian hand­ xcept that it was a pteropod. Walcott (1912) reillus- book ( Orlov, 1958) mention M atthev,ia, though some !rated the types of Jf a.tthevia with no further comment of the other Pnleozoie "pteropods" are discussed and n their systematic position; these illustrations are pho­ classified. Finally, Fisher (1962, p. W128) placed ographs, though his drawings of 1886 are almost as Jl,f atthevia as the sole genus within his new suborder atisfactory. Matthevina of his new molluscan class Calyptoptoma­ I~ tida. Miller (1889, p. 392) briefly redefined Matthevia and rlaced it within the class Pteropoda. Currently most ACKNOWLEDGMENTS r·orkers on Recent Gastropoda consistently place Pte­ Critical comments of my colleagues over a period of ~·opoda as a group of lower rank under the class Gas- 8 years have played an important part in shaping my Bl 1 B2 CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEONTOLOGY thoughts regarding the biologic and taxonomic place­ brian Trempealeau age. Locality details are given by ment of M atthevia. Though it is obvious that much Y ochelson, McAllister, and. Reso (1965). Representa­ yet remains to be learned about this genus, several asso­ tive specimens are also figured there. ciates have encouraged me to put my opinions on record All the known occurrences of M atthevia are in lime­ so that others may confirm or refute them. stone or dolomite. In the Nevada-California occur­ In particular, I am indebted to A. R. Palmer, U.S. rences, the dolomite contains fairly little silt, and the Geological Survey, who first called my attention to this acid residues consist almost exclusively of fossil frag­ animal, and to J. F. McAllister, U.S. Geological Survey, ments. A. R. Palmer (oral commun., 1964) observed who at my request collected large quantities of material little silt in the Utah and Texas matrix. The arrange­ in difficult terrain. V. E. Barnes, Bureau of Economic ment of the fossils in partly dissolved blocks shows evi­ Geology, University of Texas, loaned additional spec­ dence of sorting. J. F. McAllister searched for algal imens from his collections, as did W. L. Stokes, Uni­ structures associated with M atthevia in eastern Cali­ versity of Utah, and Anthony Res0, Tenneco Oil Co., fornia. He reported (written commun., 1963) that at Houston, Tex. one locality in theNopah Formation he observed "cryp­ tozoon -like structures in small masses a foot or two OCCURRENCE AND DISTRIBUTION OF MATTHEVIA across and a few girvanella-like ovoids," and that "cer­ M atthevia originally was described only from the tain differences in textures and local accumulations type locality in the Hoyt Limestone quarry, 1 mile seem to indicate some redistribution of carbonate northwest of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The matrix is a debris." nearly black exceedingly fine grained limestone. Wal­ SYSTEMATIC PALEONTOLOGY cott (1885, p. 19) noted that this fossil is associated with Class M:ATTHEVA, new class 0 ollenia. Fisher ( 1962a, p. W120) suggested that there may be a relationship between the large bodies of Ool­ Description.-Mollusks having two massive calcar­ len·ia-forming "reefs" and the occurrence of Matthevia. eous plates, one anterior and one posterior. He indicated that the form could have been a grazing DiscttB82~on.-The molluscan nature of M atthevia is animal, though he did not rule out the possibility that highly probable but is difficult to demonstrate conclu­ specimens observed in the Hoyt may be a lag deposit. sively. Evidence of its basic molluscan character is The Hoyt Limestone Member of the Theresa Dolo­ the calcareous shell material of the type lot. The man­ mite is of Late Cambrian age and is considered to be a ner in which the shell exfoliates from the steinkern is correlative of the lower part of the Trempealeau, the precisely like that of other mollusks broken from lime­ youngest of the three stages of the Upper Cambrian. stone and unlike that of other shelled invertebrates. The latest published comprehensive stratigraphie data This feature is well shown in Walcott's drawings of the on the New York Cambrian (Fisher, 1962b) indicate types. The shell