‘Flapping valves’ in brachiopods

M. J. S. Rudwick and others postulate ‘rhythmic-flow’ feeding for the Permian richthofeniacean bi-achiopods, whereas R. E. Grant claims that they fed by normal ciliary action. Suspension-feeding has two components, current generation and food capture; normal brachiopod lophophores d o both, but this is neither universal nor compulsory among animals. Opening and closing the richthofeniid shell generated a ‘tidal-flow’ current precisely analogous to respiratory currents in mammals; this is neither inefficient nor ‘self-defeating‘, as Grant claims. Grant’s analysis fails because he chose the wrong mechanical analogy (a pump). Morphological features of richthofeniids are better explained on a tidal-flow hypothesis than on a ciliary-flow model, and all the data adduced by Grant in rejecting the former is compatible with it o r favorable to it. I t explains morphological features that are bizarre mysteries on the ciliaiy-current model, and is therefore superior even though it implies that these Permian brachiopods were radically innovative.