The oldest record of a boring foraminifer: Early Permian of New Mexico,USA

The bioeroding foraminifer Troglotella incrustans Wernli and Fookes (Bolletino della Societa Paleontologica Italiana 31, 1992, 95), is widely reported from Bajocian?, and Oxfordian to Lower Cenomanian (with a Late Jurassic acme) shallow‐water limestones of the Tethyan realm. A single specimen of a boring foraminifer, assigned to T. incrustans, has now been observed from the Lower Permian (Sakmarian) Community Pit Formation of the Doña Ana Mountains, New Mexico, USA. Surviving the end‐Permian mass extinction, T. incrustans might be a Lazarus taxon that persisted in refuges. This finding represents the oldest record of a foraminifer exhibiting an euendolithic way of life. Boring foraminifera have not been previously recorded from strata older than the Jurassic. Boring traces of potentially foraminiferan origin, however, have been already reported from the Lower Carboniferous (?Ordovician).