D.P. GORDON AND P.D. TAYLOR 
IBIS CUTS SHON seo scis case c Pa eLE So essed jus basa wu ce daa cu nan ona snk sSGaT Sse oun te uncaa date dba estue eu eesexuten tuntan set couse duces easveedan @enaeeerntet ietett tees 
Acknowledgements 
RELETEM CES ee eee cee co ae cn ac ee URS nwt aad ue eo ania ca fo chcey ea dates fA PUREE Ewa ENDER oT REEE Pee eT ge RRR cai Me et eae 
Synopsis. Named bryozoans have not previously been recorded from the New Zealand Paleocene or earliest Eocene. We here 
describe 42 species, 21 new, from the Red Bluff Tuff of Waipawan age (latest Thanetian to earliest Ypresian) collected from 
Pukekio, Chatham Island, New Zealand. Twelve of the species are cyclostomes, one is a ctenostome boring, and 29 are 
cheilostomes. Three genera are new — Melychocella, Smitticellaria (Cellariidae) and Chataimulosia (Buffonellodidae), the latter 
comprising the earliest occurrence of the Buffonellodidae, the only family in the collection representative of a “cryptocystidean’ 
frontal shield. The following species are new: Cinctipora solomoni, Ceriopora rekohuensis, Flustrellaria australis, Akatopora 
chathamica, Micropora quadriporosa, Inversaria gondwanae, Chondriovelum fossilis, Ogiva incompta, Onychocella? lamellosa, 
Aspidostoma litotes, A. cinnabarina, Cellaria minus, C. perexigua, C. elementaria, Smitticellaria morioriana, Melychocella 
cynura, Arachnopusia gracilis, Hippopleurifera australis, Exochella? gracilis, Escharoides? crassa and Chataimulosia primaeva. 
Forward range extensions include Flustrellaria, Inversaria, and possibly Escharicellaria and Pavobeisselina. Backward range 
extensions include unequivocal Cinctipora and Cinctiporidae, and Akatopora. Newly recorded for the southern hemisphere are 
Flustrellaria, Inversaria, Hippopleurifera, and possibly Hoplitaechmella, Escharicellaria, and Pavobeisselina. The overall 
taxonomic character of the bryofauna is mixed, both geographically and temporally, with genera reminiscent of northern 
hemisphere Maastrichtian and Danian bryofaunas co-occurring with families like Arachnopusiidae and Romancheinidae that are 
common in Neogene and Recent southern hemisphere bryofaunas. 
INTRODUCTION 
This is the first of a projected series of publications intended 
formally to describe the Cenozoic Bryozoa of New Zealand. The 
last, and only, major monograph of New Zealand Cenozoic bryozoans 
was that of Brown (1952): The Tertiary cheilostomatous Polyzoa of 
New Zealand, a seminal work for the study of New Zealand 
bryozoans, including living faunas. The title notwithstanding, 
Brown’s material also included Pleistocene specimens then re- 
garded as Pliocene in age. Further, no material older than Oligocene 
was studied, so the rich Eocene bryofaunas of the Oamaru District 
and Chatham Islands have remained neglected until very recently, 
when two species of Catenicellidae were described (Gordon & 
Braga 1994), and virtually nothing has been reported from the 
Paleocene. 
The Paleocene in New Zealand is represented by the local Teurian 
Stage, deposits of which are widespread but thin. With the exception 
of two well-known early Teurian (= Danian) localities at Wangaloa 
and Boulder Hill, eastern Otago, Teurian rocks are almost devoid of 
microfossils. Bryozoa (undescribed) have been recorded from only 
one mainland Paleocene locality, the Kauru Formation near Oamaru 
(Stilwell et al., 1994), where they are reportedly abundant, and latest 
Paleocene bryozoans are richly represented in parts of the Red Bluff 
Tuff on the Chatham Islands (Campbell et al., 1993). 
New Zealand Paleocene bryozoans potentially have considerable 
evolutionary interest. Whereas Maastrichtian bryofaunas are known 
from several parts of the world, Paleocene faunas are much rarer 
(MacLeod et al., 1997), and limited knowledge of bryozoan system- 
atics and stratigraphy across the K-T boundary hampers 
interpretations of extinction and survival which have relied almost 
entirely on evidence from northern European localities (e.g., 
McKinney et al., 1998). Studies of European and North American 
Cretaceous and Paleocene Bryozoa have shown that, although nu- 
merous Maastrichtian taxa disappeared at the K-T boundary, a 
number of genera and species persisted into the Danian (Voigt 
1985a; Viskova & Weiss 1998). In fact, the Danian is notable for the 
relative paucity of taxonomic novelty among Bryozoa, and this is 
true also of the Thanetian. By contrast, there is a spectacular 
Ypresian diversification of Bryozoa, including higher taxonomic 
levels (families and genera) (Voigt 1985a; Taylor 1993; Gordon & 
Voigt 1996). Indeed, Voigt (1985a) regarded the Danian as 
taxonomically the last stage of the Cretaceous for Bryozoa. The 
reasons for taxonomic conservatism among Paleocene bryozoans 
are unclear, especially since frontal-shield evolution in Late Creta- 
ceous cheilostomes appears to have resulted in innovative 
morphological characters (most notably the ascophorine ascus and 
hypostegal coelom) that predominate in Eocene taxa (Gordon & 
Voigt 1996). A macroevolutionary lag in recovery following the K- 
T extinction event is one possibility, but the relative paucity of 
Paleocene bryofaunas compared to later Eocene ones may accentu- 
ate the contrast. 
Here, we describe a bryozoan fauna of 42 species from the latest 
Paleocene to earliest Eocene Red Bluff Tuff on Chatham Island, 
New Zealand. Apart from a study of Argentinian bryozoans of the 
Roca Formation early this century (Canu 1911) and that of Brood 
(1976) on a Madagascan fauna, no other Paleocene bryozoans have 
been reported from the Southern Hemisphere. Consequently, the 
fauna reported here helps to fill a major gap in our knowledge of the 
taxonomy, stratigraphy, and palaeobiogeography of early Palaeogene 
Bryozoa. 
GEOLOGICAL SETTING 
The Chatham Islands form a small archipelago located some 850 km 
east of the South Island of New Zealand, at the eastern end of the 
Chatham Rise, a submarine extension of the New Zealand subconti- 
nent (Fig. 1). The two largest islands — Chatham Island and Pitt 
Island — are populated. The geology of the Chathams has been 
comprehensively described by Campbell er al. (1993). A pre-mid- 
Cretaceous basement of metamorphic rocks (Chatham Schist) is 
overlain by a sequence of Cretaceous and Cenozoic sedimentary, 
volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks. Many of the sedimentary units are 
richly fossiliferous, and include several cool-water limestones domi- 
nated by bryozoans, foraminifera and molluscs. 
The Red Bluff Tuff is described by Campbell et al. (1993: 74) as 
‘... a predominantly calcareous palagonite tuff of basaltic compo- 
sition, with beds of lapillistone and tuff-breccia’. Widely distributed 
on both Chatham and Pitt Islands, at most localities it is a brick-red 
to yellow-brown colour, except for the lower parts which are dark 
green and grey-brown, and is generally well bedded with cross- 
bedding, graded bedding, and other evidence of water sorting 
