Faunipollenites Bharadwaj 1962 and Protohaploxypinus Samoilovich 1953 emend. Morbey 1975: morphologic comparison of oxidized and non- oxidized specimens from India and Brazil, and its taxonomic importance

Abstract

Faunipollenites Bharadwaj is considered a junior synonym of Protohaploxypinus Samoilovich emend. Morbey. However, Indian workers claim it is a valid genus due to a poorly defined corpus and absence of folds in distal attachment. In India, a standard method is applied including the oxidization with HNO₃ more than 48 hours (+10’ of KOH). We analyze the effects of that treatment on the morphology of pollen grains of both genera in samples from the Permian of India and Brazil. The same samples are also processed with HCl, HF, two hours of HNO₃ and 2’ of KOH and slides are mounted after each step. Our analysis reveals that distinct or indistinct central body and presence/absence of folds in distal attachment do not change in contrast to the indistinct central body and mostly absence of folds from samples that underwent a longer period of oxidization (24-48 hours and KOH 10’). The synonymization of Faunipollenites to Protohaploxypinus is confirmed. Species of Faunipollenites are reassigned to the revised species of Protohaploxypinus. The usage of the latter genus and its species in Permian biostratigraphic studies of India will improve Gondwanan correlations and paleobiogeographic reconstructions in future studies.

Key words
Faunipollenites; India; morphology; Permian; Protohaploxypinus; taxonomy