Pararotalia aculeata (d.Orbigny, 1846) ze środkowego miocenu Paratetydy Centralnej

The foraminifers belonging to the genus Pararotalia Le Calvez from the Middle Miocene of the Central Paratethys are referred to different species, eg. Pararotalia (or Rotalia) stellata (Łuczkowska, 1955; Śmigielska, 1957; Urbaniak, 1974; Szczechura, & Pisera 1986) and P. ex gr. lithothamnica (Oszczypko et al., 1992) from Poland, P. stellata from Slovakia (Holcová et al., 1996), Rotalia calcar from Hungary (Korecz-Laky & Nagy-Gellai, 1985) and Pararotalia aculeata, P. cf. aculeata as well as P. spinimargo from Romania (Popescu, 1979). It is suggested here, that all of them represent one species, ie. Pararotalia aculeata (d’Orbigny, 1846). The large infraspecific variability of this species (Pl.1, figs. 1–19), resulting in its taxonomic spliting, seems to be a consequence of ontogenetic changes, ecological modifications as well as different state of preservation. The systematic relation between P. aculeata and other so far known representatives of Pararotalia, especially those from the Neogene of theMediterranean areas, should be based on large comparative material, however P. padana Mancin, Pirini et Lanfrancini, 2000, from Pliocene of Italy, seems to be conspecific with the here discussed species.