Pustulinae is an extinct

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

of medium to large-sized

brachiopods Brachiopods (), phylum Brachiopoda, are a phylum of animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear end, while the fron ...

which lived during the

Early Carboniferous Early may refer to: Places in the United States * Early, Iowa, a city * Early, Texas, a city * Early Branch, a stream in Missouri * Early County, Georgia * Fort Early, Georgia, an early 19th century fort Music * Early B, stage name of Jamaican d ...

period in

marine habitat A marine habitat is a habitat that supports marine life. Marine life depends in some way on the seawater, saltwater that is in the sea (the term ''marine'' comes from the Latin ''mare'', meaning sea or ocean). A habitat is an ecological or Na ...

s. It is named after the type genus ''Pustula''.

Taxonomy

The exact evolutionary relationships of Pustulinae relative to other groups of the

suborder Order () is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized ...

Productidina have been a matter of extensive debate throughout much of the 20th Century, primarily due to the three genera '' Buxtonia'', '' Pustula'' and '' Juresania'' (with the debate later expanded to their families and subfamilies) shifting in position repeatedly between phylogenies and classifications. The emphasis on internal versus external characters to determine the systematics of these groups has largely been responsible for this: the original ''

Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology The ''Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology,'' published from 1953–2007 by the Geological Society of America and the University of Kansas, then 2009–present by the University of Kansas Paleontological Institute, is a definitive multi-authore ...

'' published in 1965 placed emphasis on internal characters (including the cardinal process) as diagnostic, whereas the 2000 revision primarily used external features and shell shape, resulting in differing classification of these clades. More recently, Leighton & Maples (2002) conducted multiple

phylogenetic analyses In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as Computational phylogenetics, phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organ ...

which are strongly in agreement that the four subfamilies Buxtoniinae, Echinoconchinae, Pustulinae and Juresaniinae form the family Echinoconchidae. The results of their phylogenetic analyses are displayed in the

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

below:

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q33140659 Rhynchonellata