再论三叶虫Megapalaeolenus Chang,1966属的无效地位

Based on examination of the monotype of Palaeolenus deprati Mansuy, 1912 (a species de-signated by Chang (Zhang, 1966) as the type species of his new genus Megapalaeolenus Chang, 1966) and our palaeolenid material from western Hubei, the authors (2004) concluded that Palaeolenus deprati is a junior synonym of the type species of Palaeolenus Mansuy, 1912, Palaeolenus douvillei Mansuy, 1912, and that the genus Megapalaeolenus should be regarded as a junior synonym of Palaeolenus. Recently, Luo et al. (2007, 2008) reported rich material of palaeolenid trilobites from localities close to the type localities of both P. douvillei and P. departi in eastern Yunnan. The new material is important not only because it comes from the type area of Palaeolenus but also provides further evidences to confirm our earlier interpretation. The new material demonstrates that the morphological characters of ”Megapalaeolenus” and ”M. deprati” are almost indistinguishable in various aspects from Palaeolenus and P. douvillei respectively and, therefore, it is no longer appropriate to treat Megapalaeolenus and Palaeolenus deprati as valid taxa as suggested by Luo et al. (2007, 2008).