The few Pennsylvanian echinoderm faunas reported from the Paleotethys are from China,

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Animals evolve by changing their form and by changing the rate at which they develop. Since evolution of development through time may be directly related to the adaptation of their life histories, study of ontogeny in fossils may yield information about the ecology of extinct animals. We need to know how to measure animals' ontogeny and at what taxonomic level structural differences overshadow differences in development. Two closely related species of the Permian ostracode Cavellina were compared to determine how much of the morphological difference between them is due to differences in their ontogenies. Most of the difference is not related to ontogeny. They also differ in a way that could be explained by heterochrony, although this difference is secondary in importance to the structural difference. These findings suggest that ecological adaptation might best be studied by examining the changes in development that occur within species through time and space.

Abstract. From 16 sediment samples collected from the Chilean part of the Strait of Magellan, 2338 Ostracoda were recovered. These represent 61 species belonging to 45 genera and 16 families. Previous work in the Tierra del Fuego Province has shown the faunas to be highly endemic, resulting from the relative isolation of the region and its particular climatic and oceanographical characteristics. The fauna of the Strait of Magellan is similar to those previously described with one notable exception: the occurrence of deep-water, psychrospheric species at shallow depths. Species of Bradleya, Agrenocythere, Poseidonamicus, Bythoceratina, and Legitimocythere, usually recorded from bathyal to abyssal depths of more than 1000 m, were found together in the same samples with a typical, shelf fauna. Such unusual depth distribution of psychrospheric species may have resulted from the extremely cold temperature and low salinity of the water in the southern Strait of Magellan, coupled with the upwelling of cold, deep water masses.