Historical perspective: 140 years of Mesozoic radiolarian taxonomy

Th is paper summarises quantitatively the progress made on the taxonomy of Mesozoic radio larians over the last 140 years and it provides an overview over 170 years of radio larian literature. Th e dataset consists of radio larian genera and species described as new since 1876. Th ese collections contain 915 genera and 6296 species described in 449 publications. Th e analysis focuses mainly on a descriptive statistics of the genera collection, ensuing the review carried out by the Mesozoic Working Group of InterRad. Twelve diagrams are presented. Th ey illustrate the yearly production of new species and radio larian publications since 1834, and the number of new species per Mesozoic period, per radio larian order, and per most prolifi c authors. A special attention is given to the quantitative analysis of valid vs. invalid genera (synonyms, homonyms, nomina dubia), that are also related to the age of radio larians, research period and authors.