Early Ordovician lingulate brachiopods from New South Wales

Lingulate brachiopods from the Lower Ordovician (lower Oepikodus evae conodont zone) Rowena Formation in the far west of New South Wales are revised, and determined as Hyperobolus mootwingeensis (Fletcher, 1964), Lingulobolus gnaltaensis (Fletcher, 1964), and the new genus Rowenaglossa, with type species R. brunnschweileri (Fletcher, 1964). Specimens possibly conspecific with Lingulobolus gnaltaensis are illustrated from Pine Gap, near Alice Springs, Northern Territory. In central western NSW, Early Ordovician (Lancefieldian-Bendigonian) brachiopods are represented in the Yarrimbah Formation of the Parkes region by the new species Palaeoglossa yarrimbahensis, a probable zhanatellid and an indeterminate acrotretide. Allochthonous limestones in the Hensleigh Siltstone, south of Wellington, of slightly younger (Bendigonian) age, yield Otariconulus sp. cf. O. intermedia and an unnamed new ephippelasmatid. Although broadly contemporaneous, the lingulide brachiopods documented in this paper lived in contrasting environmental settings. Those from the Koonenberry Belt in the far west inhabited nearshore predominantly sandy substrates, whereas faunas from central western NSW lived in deeper water outer shelf and slope to basinal environments flanking the Macquarie Arc.