Subfamily 1. Larnacillida, Haeckel.
Definition.—Larnacida with a simple, spherical or lentelliptical, medullary shell, connected by the lateral wings of a latticed transverse girdle with the simple lentelliptical trizonal cortical shell; the central capsule encloses the former and is enveloped by the latter.
Genus 272. Larnacilla,[1] n. gen.
Definition.—Larnacida with a simple lentelliptical cortical shell, connected by the lateral wings of a latticed transverse girdle with the simple, spherical or lentelliptical, medullary shell. Surface without radial spines.
The genus Larnacilla represents the most simple form of Larnacida, and at the same time the most important common ancestral form, from which the greater number of Larcoidea may be derived, viz., all those genera which possess the characteristic "Larnacilla-shaped medullary shell." This typical form of medullary shell may be derived from the genus Trizonium among the Pylonida by the closing of the four open gates of this genus. The free opening of these four gates becomes overgrown and closed by lattice-work, developed from the free edges of the three crossed girdles, and thus finally all three girdles are united in the form of a simple lentelliptical shell (Pl. 50, figs. 1, 1a, 1b). Seen from the sagittal poles (or from the poles of the shortest axis, fig. 1), the shell exhibits on both sides of the small spherical medullary shell the two lateral wings of the transverse girdle from the face; seen from the lateral poles (or from the poles of the transverse axis, fig. 1a), one of these wings appears in the optical section as an oblong ring, which seemingly encloses the concentric medullary shell, and on both sides is grown together with the sagittal girdle; seen from the principal poles (or from the poles of the longitudinal axis, fig. 1b), both wings exhibit their elliptical opening (at the right and left from the central medullary shell). The two concentric shells are only connected by the two lateral tube-like wings of the transverse girdle; the lateral and the sagittal girdles have no connection with the medullary shell. The latter is sometimes spherical, at other times lentelliptical.
1. Larnacilla typus, n. sp. (Pl. 50, fig 1, 1a, 1b).
Cortical shell with smooth surface and with subregular network; pores twice as broad as the bars; about twelve pores on the half meridian, ten on the half equator. Proportion of the three dimensive axes = 2 : 3 : 4. Internal four gates (between transverse and lateral girdles) roundish-triangular, little broader than high. Medullary shell spherical, scarcely one-third as broad as the lentelliptical cortical shell.
- ↑ Larnacilla = Little chest, diminutive of Larnax; λάρναξ.
