Suborder Redlichiina | Class Trilobita Rank Genus | |
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Similar Redlichiida, Redlichiidae, Eoredlichia, Bathynotus, Olenellus | ||
Redlichia is a genus of redlichiid trilobite in the family Redlichiidae, with large to very large species (up to 35 centimetres or 14 inches long). Fossils of various species are found in Lower Cambrian (Toyonian)-aged marine strata from China, Korea, Pakistan, the Himalayas, Iran, Spain, southern Siberia, and Antarctica, and from Middle Cambrian (Ordian)-aged marine strata of Australia.
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Description
Redlichia has a rather flat and thinly calcified dorsal exoskeleton of inverted egg-shaped outline, about 1½× longer than wide, measured across the base of the genal spines and disregarding the spine on the 11th segment of the articulated middle part of the body (or thorax). The headshield (or cephalon) is semicircular, about ⅓× as long as the body, with clear genal spines that are a smooth continuation of the border, that extend backward and outward and curving to be near parallel near their tips, which typically extend to the backhalf of the articulated middle part of the body (or thorax). The thorax consists of 11-17 segments, with the 11th from the front bearing a backward directed spine on the midline.
Taxonomy
Redlich originally named the genus Hoeferia in 1899. It turned out however, that this name was already given to an arcoid bivalve by Bittner in 1894, rendering it an unavailable junior homonym. This is why in 1902, Cossmann renamed Hoeferia Redlich, 1899 as Redlichia.
Mesodema Whitehouse, 1939, Dongshania Lin in Qiu et al., 1983, and Spinoredlichia Liu, 1975, are all considered to be synonyms of Redlichia.
Notable species
The type species, R. noetlingi, is found in Lower Cambrian-aged marine strata of Western Pakistan. A similar species, R. chinensis, is found in Lower Cambrian-aged marine strata of China.
Reassigned species
Some of the species that were originally assigned to Redlichia were later moved to other genera.