In his paper on some problematic organic-walled microfossils from Ordovician glacial boulders of Baltic origin, Koz這wski (1967) proposed the name Helicosyrinx for a new genus of marine encrusting invertebrates. Helicosyrinx comprises two species, namely Helicosyrinx dextrogyra Koz這wski, 1967 (type species) and Helicosyrinx sinistrogyra Koz這wski, 1967, both of the Middle Ordovician age. These curious forms, some of which were preserved twisted around stipes of thesessile graptolite Mastigograptus sp., were assigned tentatively to Phoronoidea (Koz這wski 1967).
We have found that the name Helicosyrinx Koz這wski, 1967 is preoccupied bt the generic name of the opisthobranch gastropod Helicosyrinx Baur, 1864 (type species: Helicosyrinx parasita Baur, 1864). According to Article 53 and Article 60 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999), the name of the alleged phoronoid becomes a junior homonym of the name of the gastropod mollusc. Thus, in accordance with the ICZN, we propose the new name Helicotubulus for the phoronid-like form in question. The new generic name derives, like the previous one, from the Greek helix (= spiral); the new suffix - tubulus (= small pipe or tube) is from the Latin. |
