Morphometric relationships among Upper Cretaceous samples of Oertliella tarfayensis Reyment (Crustacea, Ostracoda)

Abstract

The single species analysed in this paper is from the Tarfaya Basin, southwestern Morocco; the material studied range in age from Turonian to Santonian. At least two morphotypes differentiated by their reticulum size may be distinguished. This ornamental variation seems discontinuous in nature. Continuous polymor­phism occur also within all morphotypes, as far as can be judged from the variable expression of the reticulum muri. The Santonian part of the sequence is dominated by a punctate morphotype which is ornamentally distinctly different from other forms in the sequence studied, although it cannot be distinguished with respect to size and shape according to pertinent multivariate statistics.