A UNIQUE OCCURRENCE OF ENDOPHYLLUM (RUGOSE CORAL, DEVONIAN) IN EASTERN NORTH-AMERICA - AN ECOLOGICAL AND BIOGEOGRAPHICAL PUZZLE

Endophyllum is described for the first time from North America. The oc currence of a single, large colony in Middle Devonian strata in New Yo rk is both biogeographically and environmentally anomalous: it belongs to an Old World Realm genus but was found in the Eastern Americas Rea lm, and it occurred in a gray, ambocoeliid-bearing mudstone, a facies in which morphologically complex corals are otherwise unknown. Availab le evidence suggests that the coral lived not far from where it was fo und, possibly on a hardground or bank a few km north of the outcrop. E ndophyllum ciurcai new species is described.