Cruziana yini Yang, a peri-Gondwanan trilobite trace with new records in the Ordovician of South America and Iberia

Armorican-type sandstones rich in trilobite traces of the Cruziana rugosa group are widely distributed around Gondwana, especially in the Lower Ordovician of south-western Europe (Durand, 1985; Romano, 1991; Neto de Carvalho, 2006 and references therein), north Africa – Middle East (Seilacher, 1970, 1990; El-Khayal and Romano, 1988; Ramos et al., 2006), Avalonia and Eastern Newfoundland (Crimes, 1970, 1975; Fillion and Pickerill, 1990), and in the Lower and Upper Ordovician of the Central Andean basin (a.o. Toro et al., 1990; Mángano et al., 2001; Aceñolaza and Aceñolaza, 2002; Mángano and Buatois, 2003; Aceñolaza and Milana, 2005; Egenhoff et al., 2007). Outside northern and western Gondwana, there are scattered occurrences of the Cruziana rugosa group in the Lower Ordovician of South China (Yang and Fu, 1985) and perhaps in Baltica (Knaust, 2004), but only the former show close resemblance with Gondwanan assemblages. Here we report some South American and European records of an interesting member of the Chinese association of the Cruziana rugosa group, showing the wide peri-Gondwanan distribution attained by their corresponding, and somewhat-related, trilobite make