Abstract

Because of their relative abundance in middle and late Paleozoic faunas, brachiopods have figured as the paramount group in regional zonal schemes based on macrofauna. Additionally, because of near ubiquity, they have obvious potential for species-level paleobiogeographic analysis consistent with the species-level analyses of contemporary marine zoogeographers. When Devonian brachiopod faunas for the Asia-Australia hemisphere are analysed in this way major disjunctures in distributions are found, coincident with major ophiolite belts or prominent geosutures. Extension of inter-regional stratigraphic schemes across such disjunctures, using brachiopods as the prime basis for correlation, is often immensely difficult due, apparently, to former appreciable distances apart of continental blocks.

Too narrow interpretation of paleontologic species and genera without reference to variability within living populations has caused many paleontologists to overspeciate their materials, generating apparently high levels of endemicity and thus beclouding biogeography and bringing confusion to biostratigraphic correlation.