Gwynia

Gwynia capsula
Temporal range: Pleistocene–Recent
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Gwynia capsula, 1mm
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Brachiopoda
Subphylum: Rhynchonelliformea
Class: Rhynchonellata
Order: Terebratulida
Suborder: Terebratellidina
Superfamily: Megathyridoidea
Family: Megathyrididae
Genus: Gwynia
King, 1859
Species: G. capsula
Jeffreys, 1859[1]
Synonyms

Terebratula capsula

Gwynia capsula is a very small to minute brachiopod (maximally 1.5 millimetres or 0.059 inches long), currently known from the east Atlantic (France, Belgium, Netherlands, British Isles), but which occurred during the Pleistocene in what is now Norway. It has a translucent, whitish, purse-shaped shell with relatively large, wide-spaced pits (or punctae). It lives attached to stones or shells (fragments) in between large grains of sand. Like in all brachiopods, it filters food particles, chiefly diatoms and dinoflagellates. Gwynia capsula harbors a small number of larvae inside a brood pouch, but it has separate sexes, unlike also very small and pouch brooding Argyrotheca and Joania, which are hermaphrodite.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Jeffreys J. G. (1859). "Further gleanings in British Conchology". Annals and Magazine of Natural History (series 3). 3:30–43, 106–120, pl. 2.
  2. ↑ Moore, R.C. (1965). Brachiopoda. Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. Part H., Volume 2. Boulder, Colorado/Lawrence, Kansas: Geological Society of America/University of Kansas Press. pp. H831–32. ISBN 0-8137-3015-5.


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