Free and mobile brachiopods from New Zealand Oligocene deposits and Australian waters

Abstract
The musculature of the Recent Australian species, Magadina cumingi (Davidson 1852), is revised and previously unknown dorsal median pedicle muscles are described. The behaviour of M. cumingi is analysed in relation to the physical properties of the bryozoan sands it occupies on the Australian shelf. Functional morphology of a New Zealand Oligocene species, Rhizothyris amygdala Thomson 1920, indicates that this species would also have lived as a free and mobile form in the originally unconsolidated sediments (greensands) in which it is preserved. Shell characters of members of both Magadina and Rhizothyris are incompatible with an attached sedentary existence.

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