The atrypide brachiopod Qilianotryma Xu in Jin et al., 1979 is an early member of the subfamily Spirigerininae initially described from the Katian (Upper Ordovician) Koumenzi Formation of the Qilian Mountains, Qaidam terrane, Northwest China. Qilianotryma suspectum (Popov in Nikiforova et al., 1982) is described for the first time from the Upper Ordovician of South China paleoplate. Serial sectioning in this study revealed the typical spiralia and other internal structures of early atrypides. The rephotographing of type material and discriminant analysis support that Qilianotryma and broadly similar Euroatrypa can be differentiated in terms of external morphology. The distribution of Qilianotryma across the South China paleoplate, Qaidam terrane, and a few Kazakh terranes (i.e., Chu-Ili, Boshchekul, and Chingiz-Tarbagatai) supports a low-latitude faunal province separate from that of Laurentia and Baltica during the Katian, but further work describing and reviewing additional fossil material from these plates and terranes may improve our understanding of the position of these plates and the role that paleogeography played in increasing biodiversity during the Ordovician Radiation.