First record of trilobites (Arthropoda) from Carboniferous deposits of the Dnipro-Donets Depression, north-eastern Ukraine

1. IntroductionTrilobites, an incredibly diverse group of extinctarthropods, both taxonomically and ecologically,experienced a heyday between the Late Cambrianand Late Ordovician (Foote, 1993; Westrop & Ad -rain, 1998; Bault et al., 2022), but gradually began todecline during the Devonian and Carboniferous, togo extinct by the end of the Permian (Owens, 1990,2003). Currently, approximately 80 trilobite generaare known from Mississippian (Lower Carbonifer-ous) strata. Trilobite taxonomic diversity declinedsharply near the Lower/Upper Carboniferousboundary, and only about 20 genera are knownfrom Pennsylvanian levels (Bault et al., 2022).Trilobites are highly significant for the stra-tigraphy of Lower Palaeozoic deposits (Tortello,2003; Babcock et al., 2017), but their application inbiostratigraphical schemes for Carboniferous andPermian strata is limited or even non-existent (seeBrezinski, 1992, 2000, 2008). However, they do con-stitute a valuable tool for palaeogeographical andpalaeoecological reconstructions (e.g., Brezinski,1999, 2003, 2023).The Carboniferous macrofauna of the Dni -pro-Donets Depression (north-eastern Ukraine;Fig. 1A), inclusive of trilobites, is still poorlyknown, which may be explained by the multi-kilo-metre-thick Carboniferous succession occurringhere at considerable depths (c. 3,000–6,000 m ac-cording to Bilyk et al., 2002 and Lukin, 2020). InUkraine, Late Palaeozoic trilobites have been de -scribed from the Mississippian, Pennsylvanianand Lower Permian (Cisuralian) of the Donets Ba -sin (Verneuil, in Murchison et al., 1845; Eichwald,1861; Kargin, 1911; Chernyshev, 1922; Lebedev,1927; V. Weber, 1933, 1937, 1939, 1941; Mychko &Dernov, 2019), the Serpukhovian and Bashkirianof the Lviv Palaeozoic Trough (Shul’ga et al., 1992;Shul’ga & Konstantynenko, 1993; Shul’ga et al.,2007), as well as from allochthonous blocks of Per -mian limestones within the Triassic–Jurassic flyschGeologos 30, 1 (2024): 45–56https://doi.org/10.14746/logos.2024.30.1.04First record of trilobites (Arthropoda) fromCarboniferous deposits of the Dnipro-DonetsDepression, north-eastern UkraineVitaly DernovDepartment of Palaeontology and Stratigraphy of the Palaeozoic Sediments, Institute of Geological Sciencesof the NAS of Ukraine, Oles Honchar Street 55b, 01601 Kyiv, Ukraine.e-mail address: vitalydernov@gmail.comAbstractA small trilobite faunule consisting of Weberides mucronatus (M’Coy, 1844) and Waribole sp. is described from Serpuk-hovian (Upper Mississippian) strata of the Sribne-Krasnograd Zone in the Dnipro-Donets Depression (north-easternUkraine). Weberides mucronatus has previously been recorded from Serpukhovian levels in the Donets Basin and inthe Lviv Palaeozoic Trough in Ukraine, whereas species of Waribole are here recorded from Carboniferous deposits ofUkraine for the first time. This genus is typical of faunal assemblages of the Mississippian-aged Kulm facies, formedunder relatively deep-water marine conditions and widely distributed across western and central Europe.