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The cheilostome bryozoan genus Taylorius Gordon, 2014 comprises six named living and fossil species from New Zealand and one Recent species from South Africa. Taylorus nom. nov. is proposed as a replacement name for Taylorius Gordon, 2014 (Bryozoa), a secondary homonym of Taylorius Britton, 1960 (Arthropoda: Coleoptera). Here, we describe Taylorus patagonicus sp. nov. from the early Miocene of Argentine Patagonia, and two new living species from New Zealand, Taylorus microperforatus sp. nov. and Taylorus alatus sp. nov. These new finds extend the known range of Taylorus nom. nov. to areas formerly comprising the Gondwanan supercontinent. Cladistic analysis suggests that there is a basal divergence within Taylorus nom. nov. in which an extant lineage consisting of species from South Africa and New Zealand is the sister group to the remaining species. Two New Zealand fossil taxa, T. masoni and T. waiparaensis, were not recovered in an exclusively Zealandian clade. The early Miocene New Zealand species T. masoni nested with three Recent Zealandian species, this subclade being sister to a group comprising the remaining New Zealand species and that from Patagonia. These different lineages suggest that Taylorus nom. nov. originated in the Paleogene, perhaps in the early Oligocene or late Eocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bryozoan fauna from the South American Cenozoic is poorly known. The study of new material collected in the Monte León Formation (early Miocene), gave us the opportunity to describe four new species: Valdemunitella canui n. sp., Foveolaria praecursor n. sp., Neothoa reptans n. sp., and Calyptotheca santacruzana n. sp. Two of them (V. canui and C. santacruzana) were first recorded by F. Canu and interpreted as recent species from the Australian bryozoan fauna, but are herein described as new species. The stratigraphic range of Otionella parvula (Canu, 1904) is extended to the early Miocene. The present study emphasizes the close relationships between the South American Neogene bryozoan faunas and those of other Gondwanan sub-continents such as New Zealand and Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]