356 Neogene Paleontology in the Northern Dominican Republic 19

Neogene Paleontology in the Northern Dominican Republic: 19. The family Faviidae (Anthozoa: Scleractinia) Part II. The genera Caulastraea, Favia, Diploria, Thysanus, Hadrophyllia - BAP #356

Seventeen species and seven of the family Faviidae that bud intramurally are described in collections from the Neogene sequence in the Cibao Valley of the northern Dominican Republic. The material consists of 220 colonies from 85 localities along five river sections that range in age from Late Oligocene to Early Pliocene. Most of the specimens were collected along two fiver sections (39 localities in Río Cana) that expose an exceptionally continuous sequence extending from Late Miocene to Early Pliocene time.

Preliminary comparisons with other well-documented collections of Neogene and Quaternary Caribbean corals suggest that only four of the 17 described species are restricted to the Dominican Republic. Most species were fairly widely distributed across the Caribbean region. Origination rates appear to have been high among flabelloid and meandroid faviid species during the late Miocene to Earliest Pliocene; extinction rates were high in these species during the Plio-Pleistocene.