CALCAREOUS ALGAE OF THE MIDDLE EAST 23 



divided branch-structure from the Japanese Lower Carboniferous Anatolipora 

 (Konishi 1956), and similarly from the English Lower Carboniferous Nanopora 

 anglica (Wood 1964) ; Wood refers Anthracoporella fragilissima to this latter genus 

 also. Johnson's U.S.A. records of Anthracoporella from the Permian of New Mexico 

 and Upper Permian of Texas (Johnson 1942 ; 1951) may well be of A. mercurii. 

 Outside the Middle East, it occurs in the Upper Permian of Tebaga Well, S. Tunisia. 

 The species appears to be more wide-spread in scattered occurrences than the large 

 localized A. spectabilis, and is dedicated to the god Mercury who presided over travel. 



Anthracoporella magnipora Endo 



1951 Anthracoporella magnipora Endo : 124, pi. 10, figs. 4, 5. 

 1963 A. magnipora Endo ; Fliigel : 85, pi. 1, fig. 1. 



This species, originally described from the Japanese Permian, is known to me in the 

 Middle East only from Flugel's record quoted above : Permian of the Ala Dag, 

 Taurus Mountains, Southern Turkey. 



Genus ATRACTYLIOPSIS Pia 1937 



Diagnosis. Fusiform, cylindrical or ovoid tubes formed of adjacent touching or 

 fused hollow calcified spheres. 



Atractyliopsis was proposed by Pia (1937) for certain Upper Palaeozoic algal 

 micro fossils which consist essentially of groups of adjacent, touching or fused hollow 

 calcified spheres, occurring in the form of fusiform, cylindrical or bead-like bodies. 

 These were regarded by him as somewhat similar to his earlier genera from the 

 Triassic, Aciculella and Holosporella (Pia 1930). These he had interpreted as the 

 remains of dasyclads in which the only calcified structures were the walls of endo- 

 sporic sporangia set subperipherally within the main stem-cell, and he compared 

 these with the Triassic Diplopora phanerospora in which these structures are seen 

 within a normal calcified diplopore wall-structure. Holosporella is a hollow tube ; 

 Aciculella a solid shaft, regarded as calcified internally during the lifetime of the alga. 



Pia gave three figures of Atractyliopsis, two Carboniferous, one Permian, without 

 assigning a type-species or species-names ; he considered these fossils as fusiform 

 segments. The Permian form was later named A. lastensis (Accordi 1955), fully 

 described from Italian topotype material, and recognized as cylindrical in form. 

 Meanwhile Wood (1940) described the similar Coelosporella from the English Car- 

 boniferous, and mentioned its cylindrical form as differing from the alleged fusiform 

 Atractyliopsis. Coelosporella however shows a much more solid wall than the other 

 forms, and ovoid outwardly-directed sporangia, and may be regarded as valid on 

 these grounds. Atractyliopsis, which differs only in larger dimensions and geological 

 age from the earlier-described Holosporella, is retained here, since such fossils could 

 originate from dasyclads of very different pattern. 



In the Middle East only one species of Atractyliopsis is known : this occurs in a 

 somewhat similar facies and at the same level as the type-species, but less abundantly. 



