Memoirs of Museum Victoria 68: 29-35 (2011) 
ISSN 1447-2546 (Print) 1447-2554 (On-line) 
http:// museum.com.au/About/Books-and-Journals/Journals/Memoirs-of-Museum-'Victoria 
A new species of Peribrissus (Echinoidea, Spatangoida) from the middle Miocene 
of South Australia 
Francis C. Holmes 
Honorary Associate, Invertebrate Palaeontology, Museum Victoria, GPO Box 666, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia, 
and 15 Kenbry Road, Heathmont, Victoria 3135, Australia (fholmes@bigpond.net.au) 
Abstract Holmes, F. C. 2011. A new species of Peribrissus (Echinoidea, Spatangoida) from the middle Miocene of South Australia. 
Memoirs of Museum Victoria 68: 29-35. 
A new species of spatangoid echinoid from the middle Miocene Glenforslan Formation cropping out in the Murray 
River cliffs near Blanchetown, South Australia, is described and assigned to the genus Peribrissus. Peribrissus janiceae 
sp. nov. is only the third species of this genus to be recorded, and the first to occur outside the Mediterranean area of 
Europe and North Africa. Brief references are made to the similarity of certain features in Prenaster, Pericosmus and 
Peribrissus, which have caused confusion with identification in the past. 
Keywords Echinoidea, Spatangoida, Peribrissus, new taxa, middle Miocene, South Australia 
Introduction 
In the Miocene stratigraphic sequences along the Murray River 
and elsewhere in Australia, species belonging to the Spatangoida 
constitute approximately 50 per cent of the recorded taxa of 
irregular echinoids (Holmes et al., 2005). The discovery of yet 
another new species of spatangoid, albeit a single specimen, 
should come as no surprise considering the vast extent of these 
generally poorly examined outcrops in South Australia. 
However, what is intriguing is that the new species belongs to a 
genus that, so far, has been recorded in the literature from only 
the Mediterranean area of Europe and North Africa. The 
specimen was found by Chris Ah Yee and Janice Krause in 
2007 at Museum Victoria locality PL3203 (see fig.l), the same 
location as the three specimens of Murraypneustes biannulatus 
Holmes et al., 2005, discovered in 2003. 
Materials and methods 
The specimen number prefixed ‘P\ on which this study is 
based, is housed in the Invertebrate Palaeontology Collection, 
Museum Victoria (NMV). Wherever possible, measurements 
where made with a dial calliper to an accuracy of 0.1 mm. 
Parameters are expressed as a percentage of test length (%TL), 
test width (%TW) or test height (%TH). 
Age and stratigraphy 
The Glenforslan Formation, in which the specimen was found, 
is synonymous with the Lower Morgan limestone, which 
conformably overlies the Finniss Formation and is of early 
middle Miocene (Batesfordian, Langian) age. The thickness of 
the unit is relatively consistent at 13-15 m, although this is 
reduced in southern exposures due to post-middle Miocene 
uplift and subsequent erosion. Echinoids tend to be found at or 
above the floatstone-rudstone contact at the base of cycles 
composed of mollusc-bryozoan floatstone grading upward 
into Celleporaria rudstone tops (Lukasik and James, 1998). 
Sediments are pervasively mottled, obscuring all physical 
sedimentary textures. The middle Glenforslan Formation is 
interpreted as being deposited in relatively shallow waters, 
possibly less than 10 m, based on the presence of calcareous 
algae and mixotrophic foraminifers (Dr Jeff Lukasik, Petro- 
Canada Oil and Gas, Calgary, pers. com., 2005). This section 
of the formation forms part of the richest warm-water biotic 
record from southern Australia at a time of maximum 
transgression of the sea across the continental shelf 
(McGowran and Li, 1994, and papers cited therein). 
Associated fauna 
Refer to Holmes et al. (2005) for a table of echinoid species 
recorded from the Glenforslan Formation. 
Systematic palaeontology 
Order Spatangoida L. Agassiz, 1840 
Suborder Paleopneustina Markov and Solov’ev, 2001 
Family Prenasteridae Lambert, 1905 
Remarks. The family Paleopneustidae A. Agassiz, 1904, 
together with the families Pericosmidae, Schizasteridae and 
Prenasteridae, initially established as tribes within the family 
