Cassinoceras

Last updated

Cassinoceras
Temporal range: Early Ordovician
Cassinoceras characters.PNG
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Subclass: Nautiloidea
Order: Bisonocerida
Family: Piloceratidae
Genus: Cassinoceras
Ulrich & Foerste, 1936

Cassinoceras ("Cassin Horn") is a genus of nautiloids belonging to the endocerid family Piloceratidae that comes from the late Early Ordovician of eastern North America and adjacent territories. [1]

Cassinoceras is characterized by short, laterally compressed, rapidly expanding shells in which the upper, dorsal, surface has a convex curvature and diverges strongly from the essentially straight lower, ventral surface. The siphuncle which entirely fills the apical portion at the back of the shell is also compressed and vertically expanding, and is filled with simple endocones with a complex system of endosiphuncular blades through which a flattened endosiphuncular tube with widely spaced partitions runs. [1] The shell of Cassinoceras grew to about 25 to 30 cm long. [2]

Cassinoceras was named by Ulrich & Foerste in 1936 for the Fort Cassin Limestone of western Vermont, from which the upper stage of the Canadian Epoch, known as the Cassinian gets its name. The genotype is Cassinoceras explanator (Whitfield). A second species Cassinoceras grande Ulrich & Foerste is also known from the Fort Cassin Limestone. The genus has also been found in Newfoundland, the Arctic islands, and on Spitsbergen.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nautiloid</span> Extant subclass of cephalopods

Nautiloids are a group of marine cephalopods (Mollusca) which originated in the Late Cambrian and are represented today by the living Nautilus and Allonautilus. Fossil nautiloids are diverse and species rich, with over 2,500 recorded species. They flourished during the early Paleozoic era, when they constituted the main predatory animals. Early in their evolution, nautiloids developed an extraordinary diversity of shell shapes, including coiled morphologies and giant straight-shelled forms (orthocones). No orthoconic and only a handful of coiled species, the nautiluses, survive to the present day.

Cameroceras is an extinct genus of endocerid cephalopod which lived in equatorial oceans during the entire Ordovician period. Like other endocerids, it was an orthocone, meaning that its shell was fairly straight and pointed. It was particularly abundant and widespread in the Late Ordovician, inhabiting the shallow tropical seas in and around Laurentia, Baltica and Siberia.

Suecoceras is an endoceratid that lived during the Middle Ordovician. It is characterised by a long, straight, slender shell with a slightly expanded tip that curves slightly downwards.

The Piloceratidae are a compressed, rapidly expanding, cyrtoconic brevicones with holochoanitic ventral siphuncles and simple endocones. Most likely evolved from Clitendoceras, a narrow, slightly endogastric genus intermediate in form between straight shelled Proendoceras and the bulkier Piloceratidae. Found in shallow carbonate marine sediments of Demingian through the Cassinian age,.

<i>Ormoceras</i> Extinct genus of molluscs

Ormoceras is an actinocerid nautiloid genus and type for the family Ormoceratidae, found in North America from the late Chazyan through the early Cincinnatian of the Middle and Upper Ordovician, but which continued through the Devonian worldwide.

Armenoceras is a genus of actinocerid nautiloid cephalopods whose fossils ranged from the late Whiterockian Stage in the early Middle Ordovician, through the remainder of the period and on into the Upper Silurian. It is the type genus of the family Armenoceratidae.

The Canadian is the Lower or Early Ordovician in North America. The term is common in the older literature and has been well understood for more than a century. However it has no official recognition by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) and has been superseded by the more recently defined Ibexian series of western Utah.

<i>Schloenbachia</i> Genus of molluscs (fossil)

Schloenbachia is a genus of ammonoid cephalopods from the Cenomanian stage of the Upper Cretaceous, and type for the Schloenbachiidae, a family within the ammonitid Hoplitoidea.

Campbelloceras is a tarphyceratid nautiloid known from the Lower Ordovician, Upper Canadian Epoch of North America, where it is widespread. Campbelloceras was named by Ulrich and Foerste in 1936.

Cyrtonybyoceras is a genus of slightly exogastric members of the Wutinoceratidae, a family of actinocerids and probably derived from an earlier Wutinoceras. The shell of Cyrtonybyoceras is curved slightly upwardly and is slightly compressed. Sutures slope toward the aperture, from the dorsum to the venter. The siphuncle is ventral but not marginal, in general form like that of Nybyoceras. Upper and lower septal necks are recumbent or narrowly free. The canal system is reticular, characteristic of the Wutinoceratidae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slender Oncoceratidae</span> Group of nautiloids

Slender Oncoceratidae are those in the family Oncoceratidae, which have slender, commonly curved, shells. Some like Oocerina are gently curved, almost straight, and with only slight expansion. Others like Dunleithoceras are strongly curved with a more notable rate of expansion. Inclusion in this somewhat arbitrary category is based on illustrations in the Treatise Part K, 1964.

Winnipegoceras is an extinct nautiloid genus from the Ordovician belonging to the Order Discosorida.

Westonoceras is an extinct nautiloid genus from the Discosorida that lived during the Middle and Late Ordovician that has been found in North America, Greenland, and Northern Europe. It is the type genus for the Westonoceratidae

<i>Pilina unguis</i> Species of mollusc (fossil)

Pilina unguis is an extinct species of Paleozoic Silurian monoplacophoran. It was first named as Tryblidium unguis and described by Gustaf Lindström in Latin from the Silurian deposits of Gotland in Sweden, in 1880.

The Tripteroceratidae is a family of depressed, straight to slightly curved nautiloid cephalopods from the middle and upper Ordovician with generally flattened venters and empty siphuncles with straight to inflated segments included in the Oncocerida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phragmoceratidae</span> Extinct family of molluscs

The Phragmoceratidae is a family of extinct nautiloid cephalopods from the Order Discosorida that lived during the latter part of the Silurian.

Macroloxoceras is a large pseuorthocerid from the upper Devonian of Central Colorado and Southern New Mexico with features resembling those found in actinocerids. Pseudorthocerids and actinocerids are extinct nautiloid cephalopods, generally with long straight shells and expanded siphuncle segments filled with organic deposits.

Glyptodendron is a Lower Silurian westonocerid characterized by compressed cyrtocones with a narrowly rounded dorsum and greatest width in the ventrolateral region. Sutures slope forward from the dorsum which is on the longitudinally concave side. The siphuncle is slightly ventral from the center. Segments are subspherical in the young; equally broad but shorter in the adult. No endosiphuncular deposits are known. The surface of the shell is covered by obliquely intersecting rows of scale-like pits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lechritrochoceratidae</span> Extinct family of nautiloids

Lechritrochoceratidae is a family of derived tarphycerids from the middle and upper Silurian, once included in the now largely abandoned Barrandeocerida.

Hectoceras is a genus in the nautiloid cephalopod order Discosorida from the Upper Ordovician of Australia (Tasmania), known from a few isolated siphuncle specimens.

References

  1. 1 2 Teichert, Curt, 1964. Endoceratoidea in Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology Part K Mollusca 3; Geological Soc. of America and Univ of Kansas Press; pp K171-K172, Piloceratidae.
  2. Moore, Raymond C., Lalicker, Cecil G., & Fischer, Alfred G. 1952. Invertebrate Fossils. McGraw-Hill, New York. Page 355