(Eurypterus lanceolatus Salter) is faunistic evidence of this homotaxy.
Still closer is the faunistic and stratigraphic agreement of the Bertie waterlime with the eurypterid beds of Oesel. The upper Oesel zone contains in Eurypterus fischeri a species which is conceded by Schmidt and Holm to be but a vicarious form of the E. remipes; and as both the Bertie waterlime and the upper Oesel are situated close to the top of the Siluric, there is little doubt that they are homotaxial [Schmidt, 1892].
The Devonic of Great Britain contains one eurypterid horizon, that of the Old Red sandstone, characterized by the giant Pterygotus anglicus, the "seraphim" of the Scottish quarrymen. To this monster of the great lakes and estuaries of the Old Red sandstone continent, Eria, the Stylonurus excelsior of the Catskill beds is a parallel; it lived at the same time, under like physical conditions, in the same continental waters and is found in a similar association of ganoids (Holoptychius), placoderms and land plants. In a similar association these remains are found in the Upper Devonic of Belgium and of New Brunswick.
Minor occurrences are also known from Podolia, Galicia, and Bohemia [Barrande, 1872; Semper, 1898; Seeman, 1906]. Those of Podolia and Galicia are essentially a continuation of the Oesel horizon [v. Alth, 1874; v. Siemiradzki, 1906]. Australia has furnished a single fragment of Pterygotus from the Upper Siluric [McCoy, 1899].
The last outburst occurs both in Great Britain and North America in the Productive Coal Measures where a number of species of Eurypterus appear which bear the distinct marks of the approaching extinction of the race, and because of their phylogerontic characters these have been united under the subgenus Anthraconectes. In North America the Coal Measures of Pennsylvania and the iron stone nodules of Mazon Creek, Illinois, have furnished about half a dozen species of this peculiar group.[1]
- ↑ The Coal Measures of the Joggins, Nova Scotia, contain eurypterid remains [Salter, 1863, p. 78], and the Lower Gondwana areas of South Africa and South America have lately furnished eurypterids [see supplement on Hastimima p. 401].
