The 'Balladoole Coral' from the Lower Carboniferous of the British Isles, reinterpreted as the unusual cystoporate bryozoan Meekoporella Moore & Dudley, 1944

Michelinia balladoolensis, originally described by John Smith, in 1911, fro m the Lower Carboniferous of the Isle of Man, is an unusual fossil with a d istinctive morphology. Smith regarded it as a tabulate coral, but subsequen t workers have tentatively assigned it to the conulariids or to the Bryozoa . Restudy of the type specimens, together with material from the Asbian of Armagh, and newly collected specimens from the Bee Low Limestones (Asbian) of Derbyshire, demonstrates that Michelinia balladoolensis is a cystoporate bryozoan referable to Meekoporella. Specimens of Meekoporella balladoolens is comprise small inverted pyramids, open-ended and typically five-sided; c ompound colonies are constructed of clusters of contiguous pyramids. Coloni es were apparently arboreal, living attached to crinoid stems or other cyli ndrical substrata which supported them some distance above the sediment sur face in reefal settings. A lectotype and paralectotype are designated for M . balladoolensis. Meekoporella bancrofti sp. nov. is described from the Hot wells Limestone (early Brigantian) of the Mendips, and differs from M. ball adoolensis in having smaller autozooecial apertures and reflexed autozooeci al chambers.