Robust multivariate procedures applied to the interpretation of atypical individuals of a Cretaceous foraminifer

Robust multivariate statistical methods are applied to samples of the Cretaceous bolivinid foraminifer Afrobolivina afra, in which individuals from microspheric and megalospheric generations dominate, but which also contain some pseudo-megalospheric specimens. Pseudo-megalospheric tests may cause values which are atypical in the statistical sense but which are fully normal biologically. Other atypical values derive from crushed specimens, microspheric individuals and unusual normal megalospheres with exceptionally wide shells and pointed last chambers. A wrongly punched specimen was also found by the procedure. The method employed here consists of plotting the generalized statistical distances calculated from robust estimates of means and of covariances against the quantiles of a Gaussian distribution; the presence of an atypical observation(s) is readily exposed by its departure from the main trend of the plot.