ABSTRACT
Permian carbonate buildups of the central Yangtze area of South China (Hunan, Jiangxi, Hubei provinces) include sponge-microbial-algai and compound coral reefs. Reef-dwelling brachiopods were collected from the sponge-microbial-algal reef member of the Daluokeng Formation (Changxingian), and a few came from the Xiamidong Fm. (Wujiapingian). Some of these brachiopods, especially those from the Daluokeng section at Gaofeng (Hunan), are described here for the first time. Late Permian brachiopod-bearing reef sequences are known from four regions of China: Chenxian County (southern Hunan), Heshan County (Guangxi), and Longdonchuan and Cili counties (Shaanxi). Brachiopod faunas at these four reefal localities, (1) lived in a reefal framework, especially between algally-bound sponges, (2) were mostly endemics confined to their own narrow reef settings, with only two genera, Araxathyris and Leptodus, common to all faunas in the four regions, (3) lacked inarticulates, (4) included rare chonetids, (5) showed common spiriferids and rhynchonellids in the reef framework, and, (6) had productids, richthofenids and oldhaminids in reefal shell banks. A new reef-dwelling spiriferid genus, Ladoliplica, and two new species, the type L. zigzagiformis, and L. platformia, are described.
