Palaeoaplysinella gen. nov. and Likinia Ivanova and Ilkhovskii, 1973 emend., from the type Moscovian (Russia) and the algal affinities of the ancestral palaeoaplysinaceae n. comb

Because of the cellular tissue often described and occasionally confused in the literature with some Archaeolithophyllum, an assignment to the red algae Archaeolithophyllaceae is proposed for Palaeoaplysinaceae nomen translat., herein. Archaeolithophyllaceae, Palaeoaplysinaceae and several “phylloid algae” might compose the order Archaeolithophyllales nom. translat. A new ancestral form of the primitive paleoaplysinaceans is described in the Podolskian (early late Moscovian) of the Moscow Basin, under the name Palaeoaplysinella n. gen. with P. moscovica n. sp., as type species. These forms, proportionally small, do not construct reefal structures, and is reworked in bioclastic grainstone rich in algae and fusulinids. Its structure differs from the following late Moscovian forms previously described as palaeoaplysinaceans: (a) Likinia from the Podolskian-Myachkovian deposits of the Moscow basin and (b) the Desmoinesian palaeoaplysines mentioned in Utah (USA) (a taxon to re-describe). Likinia is revised herein. Its type species does not belong to the palaeoaplysinaceans; nevertheless, its assignment is uncertain. Since their origin, the Palaeoaplysinaceae colonized the shelf seas of the northern subtropical to warm-temperate provinces (from 15 to 45°N) including the Urals, Greenland, Canadian Arctic Archipelago, some parts of the North American Craton and the Klamath Exotic Terrane (California). The adjacent regions of the southern USA, northern Mexico (Sonora), Pericaspian, and Donbass have not been colonized. The history of Palaeoaplysinacea is probably linked to the evolution of the Ural Ocean. Based on these reconstructed paleolatitudes, the Akiyoshi Terrane in Japan, which contains rare Palaeoaplysina, was emplaced between 15 and 45° North latitude during the Asselian (earliest Permian).