New records of Recent brachiopods (Terebratulida) from the northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge

ABSTRACT

Five species of Recent brachiopods (Terebratulida), i.e. Xenobrochus parvus (Cooper, 1977), Chlidonophora incerta (Davidson, 1878), Eucalathis ergastica Fischer & Œhlert, 1890, Nanacalathis atlantica Zezina 1991, and Leptothyrella incerta (Davidson, 1880) have been identified in the material collected during the 39th cruise of the RV Professor Logachev in the Russian Exploration Area in the central part of the northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge in February–March 2018. Only Chlidonophora incerta is numerous, the remaining species are very rare. This is the first confirmed occurrence of the genus Xenobrochus from the Atlantic Ocean. The distribution of the studied fauna and its comparison with adjacent regions are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• abyssal fauna
• biodiversity
• biogeography
• Brachiopoda
• Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the crew and scientific team of the 39th cruise of RV Professor Logachev for the support and assistance in sampling of collection. The cruise was organized by the Polar Marine Geosurvey Expedition and financed through the Federal Subsoil Resources Management Agency of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation. T. Molodtsova was supported in part by RF State Assignment (0149-2019-0009). We wish to thank Jeffrey H. Robinson (University of Otago, Dunedin) and an anonymous reviewer, as well as the subject editor John Zardus for their constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).