A redescription of Chasmataspis laurencii Caster & Brooks, 1956 (Chelicerata: Chasmataspidida) from the Middle Ordovician of Tennessee, USA, with remarks on chasmataspid phylogeny

The type material of Chasmataspis laurencii Caster & Brooks, 1956 (Chelicerata: Chasmataspidida) from the Middle Ordovician (Tremadoc to Caradoc) of Sevier County, Tennessee, USA, is redescribed, and comparisons are drawn with recently discovered Devonian chasmataspids from Scotland, Germany and Russia. The depositional setting of the C. laurencii fossils is reinterpreted as an ash fall into shallow marine/tidal sediments. Chasmataspis laurencii confirms the presence of 13 opisthosomal segments in Chasmataspidida, a character of unresolved polarity. The phylogenetic position ofC. laurencii is difficult to resolve. A monophyletic Chasmataspidida has one convincing autapomorphy in the nine-segmented postabdomen, but C. laurencii shares a number of characters with xiphosurans (i.e. cardiac lobe, pre-abdomen with axial region, biramous and chelate limbs), while the Devonian taxa more closely resemble eurypterids (i.e. through pediform limbs and a genital appendage). Earlier interpretations of the respiratory system in C. laurencii appear unconvincing in the light of new evidence from Devonian forms with opisthosomal opercula. Resting impressions of a Chasmataspis-like animal from the Upper Cambrian Hickory Sandstone of Texas, USA, also appear to show evidence of opercula. These Texan fossils could represent the oldest record of Euchelicerata. Two chasmataspid families are recognised, and C. laurencii is placed in the monotypic Chasmataspididae Caster & Brooks, 1956, redefined here on the fused pre-abdominal buckler with an axial region and the narrow, elongate post-abdomen ending in a long, lanceolate telson.