On the genus Quiringites Struve, 1992 (Brachiopoda, Middle Devonian)

A new spiriferid brachiopod species, Quiringites arensentiae, has been identified in Eifelian strata from the Maïder and the Dra Valley (Morocco). The new species is the first report of representatives of Quiringites from North Africa, which have hitherto only been known from Europe and questionably from the Canadian Arctic Islands. Quiringites arensentiae differs from the type species, Q. elegans, in a stronger development of secondary shell material in the apical region, an elevated ventral muscle field, partly imbedded crural plates, and two spirals less in each spiralium. Computer-supported 3D reconstructions from digitized acetate peels of articulated specimens are used for the first time, giving new insights into the internal morphology of this genus and emphasizing the differences between the type and the new species. A reconstruction of the phylogeny of the genus Quiringites is introduced. The occurrence of the genus first in Europe and later also in North Africa indicates faunal exchange between Laurussia and northern Gondwana, starting with the loss of Emsian provincialism at the end of the Early Devonian.