Logo
dictionary thesaurus

Zaphrentis

noun
Za·​phren·​tis | \ -ntə̇s\

Definition of Zaphrentis

: a genus (sometimes made the type of the family Zaphrentidae) of solitary cup-shaped tetracorals that are common in Paleozoic formations and have numerous septa radiating from a deep pit in one side of the cup

History and Etymology for Zaphrentis

borrowed from New Latin, alteration of earlier Zaphrenthis, a subgeneric name, of unknown origin

Note: The taxon Zaphrentis was introduced as a genus name by the French paleontologist Jules Haime (1824-56), apparently earliest in a list by Haime appended to “Notes sur les fossiles dévoniens du district de Sabero (León),” by Édouard de Verneuil, in Bulletin de la Société géologique de France, 2. série, tome 7 (1849-50), p. 161. The name is a misspelling of a subgeneric name Zaphrenthis first used by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque and John D. Clifford in “Prodrome d’une monographie des turbinolies fossiles du Kentucky,” Annales générales des sciences physiques (Brussels), tome 5 (1820), p. 234. Like many of the hundreds of taxa introduced by the eccentric French polymath Rafinesque (1783-1840), the name is not elucidated by the authors and its etymology is obscure.

Keep scrolling for more

WORD OF THE DAY

galumph

play

See Definitions and Examples

Get Word of the Day daily email!