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Article: Redescription of Drepanopterus abonensis (Chelicerata: Eurypterida: Stylonurina) from the late Devonian of Portishead, UK

Publication: Palaeontology
Volume: 52
Part: 5
Publication Date: September 2009
Page(s): 1113 1139
Author(s): James C. Lamsdell, Simon J. Braddy and O. Erik Tetlie
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How to Cite

LAMSDELL, J. C., BRADDY, S. J., TETLIE, O. 2009. Redescription of Drepanopterus abonensis (Chelicerata: Eurypterida: Stylonurina) from the late Devonian of Portishead, UK. Palaeontology52, 5, 1113–1139.

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Abstract

Stylonurid eurypterids (Arthropoda: Chelicerata) include some of the largest known arthropods – bizarre sweep-feeding hibbertopterids from the Carboniferous to end-Permian. New material of Drepanopterus abonensis, a stylonurid from the Late Devonian (Famennian) of Portishead, south-west England, offers key insights into this genus and its affinities. A redescription utilising the new material enables D. abonensis to be assigned as basal member of the Superfamily Hibbertopteroidea, the large-sweep-feeding forms, possessing a cleft metastoma and blades (modified blunt spines) on their anterior prosomal appendages. D. abonensis also shares characters such as a clavate telson and median ridge on the carapace with the proposed hibbertopteroid sister group the Kokomopteroidea. Hibbertopteroid eurypterids are the most long-ranging stylonurids, surviving the decline and extinction of the other eurypterid families in the Late Devonian, their survival probably because of their sweep-feeding mode of life, which was not in direct competition with their eurypterine relatives and other predators.
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