Middle Jurassic bryozoans from the Carmel Formation of southwestern Utah

Very few Jurassic bryozoan faunas are known outside Europe. Here we describ e seven species of calcareous cyclostome bryozoans and one bioimmured soft- bodied ctenostome bryozoan (Simplicidium sp.) from the Middle Jurassic (?Ba thonian) Carmel Formation of Utah. Three of the cyclostomes are placed in o pen nomenclature due to inadequate preservation and/or the lack of key repr oductive polymorphs. A new genus, Patulopora, is established for Diastopora cutleri Cuffey and Ehleiter, 1984, following the discovery of gonozooids t hat place this species in the Multisparsidae rather than in the Plagioeciid ae. Another of Cuffey and Ehleiter's (1984) species-Berenicea duofluvina-is reassigned to Microeciella on the basis of the gonozooids, and a similar b ut distinctly smaller form is described as M. pollostos new species. A seco nd new species-Hyporospora nielsoni-is a rare colonist of hardground unders urfaces. The Carmel bryozoan fauna is compared with better-known faunas fro m the northern European Middle Jurassic. Species richness and colony-form d iversity fall well within the expected values for bryozoan faunas of this a ge, and endemism is detectable only at relatively low taxonomic levels. Evo lutionary patterns based on studies of contemperaneous European bryozoan fa unas during this time of cyclostome evolutionary radiation are reinforced b y the palaeogeographically distant Carmel bryozoan fauna.