The family Dysnoetoporidae (Bryozoa: Cheilostomatida) did not become extinct in the Late Cretaceous: a new genus from the Miocene of Patagonia (Argentina)

Abstract

Dysnoetoporidae is a family of cheilostome bryozoans including only the genus Dysnoetopora Canu and Bassler, 1926, with three recognized species from the Late Cretaceous of the United States, Crimea, and Germany. The aim of this study was to record for the first time the presence of a fossil dysnoetoporid bryozoan in South America by describing Chenquepora miocenica new genus new species. This taxon was found in Miocene deposits of the Chenque Formation (early Langhian, ~15.37 Ma), on the Atlantic coast of Argentine Patagonia. Chenquepora n. gen. differs from Dysnoetopora in its encrusting colony and, consequently, in the absence of an endozone with long zooids arranged parallel to growth direction. This new record extends its paleobiogeographic distribution to the Southern Hemisphere and its stratigraphic range from the Campanian (Late Cretaceous) to the Miocene, showing that this extinct family survived the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass-extinction event.