FUSULINIDS: PREDATION DAMAGE AND REPAIR OF TESTS FROM THE UPPER PENNSYLVANIAN OF KANSAS

T he abundant fusulinids of the Hughes Creek Shale Member of the Foraker Limestone in east-central Kansas are noted for their excellent preservation (Hageman and Kaesler, 1998). Not all these fossils are in pristine condition, however, as taphonomy has taken its toll. We deal in part with necrolysis during predation, but we examine more specifically instances in which predation failed and the fusulinid survived to repair damage to its test. Discussing teratology (the study of malformations) of the fusulinid Parafusulina , Bradley (1956, p. 304) wrote, “It is neither plausible to attempt specifically to collect teratological specimens, nor to re-examine all existing collections. However, notation by many observers over a period of years may divulge the significance of teratology in the study of paleoecology.” Teratology of fusulinids has been undertaken by several previous authors: Staff (1910), Dunbar and Skinner (1937), Dunbar and Henbest (1942), Kahler (1942), Bradley (1956), and Wilde (1965). In spite of the usefulness of fusulinids in biostratigraphy, little is known of how they interacted with other organisms. Predators appear to have used a number of tactics, most of which were focused apparently on an area of weakness of the test, the tunnel. Other fusulinids were attacked at the poles or had test material peeled back, much as modern-day crabs strip away the shells of snails and clams. Our examination of such specimens includes the use of serial sections. We categorize the damage to the fusulinid test as equatorial or polar and the repair as hasty or deliberate, termed, respectively, bioplastering and bioadjustment. #### Sampling The Hughes Creek Shale crops out about 1.5 km east of Paxico, Kansas, on Interstate 70. It was sampled because it contains abundant, well-preserved specimens of Triticites ventricosus (Meek and Hayden, 1858). These specimens have weathered free from …