"The graptolites - and here reference is made rather to the Graptoloidea than to the
dendroid forms - are usually thought of as animal stocks of small or moderate size. Many
of them measure only 10 mm, or even less, and such forms as reach 100-150 mm in length
may claim to be desired as "very long". These are found e.g. in certain Diplograptids, such
as Diplograptus longissimus Kurck (length of rhabdosome amounting to more than 160 mm;
Kurck 1883, p. 302) and in the Didymograptids, but especially in the Monograptids."
Maximum length of Monograptus rhabdosomes is given within brackets:
Lower Ludlovian: M. scanicus (>150 mm)
Upper Wenlockian: M. flemingi (>800 mm)
M. testis (>340 mm)
M. flexilis ( 240 mm)
Lower Wenlockian M. priodon (>300 mm)
Gala-Tarannon: M. priodon (>300 mm)
M. acus (>160 mm)
M. spinulosus ( 160 mm)
Llandoverian: M.? sedgwicki (>200 mm)
"In his [...] book on "Das mittel-deutsche Graptolithenmeer", R. Hundt (1939, pp.
193-197) devotes a chapter to the size of graptolites from Middle Germany. From the
great length of many incomplete graptolite rhabdosomes he concludes that specimens
reaching a length more than 1 m must have occured not only in Monograptus flemingi but
e.g. in M. priodon, M. lobiferus, and M.? sedgwicki."
___________________________________________________
Source:
Regnell, G. 1949. On large-sized rhabdosomes in Monograptids. - Kungl. Fysiografiska Söllskapets I Lund
Förhandlingar 19, 12, 1-11.
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