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Nectocaris is a genus of squid-like animal of controversial affinities known from the Cambrian period. The initial fossils were described from the Burgess Shale of Canada. Other similar remains possibly referrable to the genus are known from the Emu Bay Shale of Australia and Chengjiang Biota of China.
Coleoidea or Dibranchiata is one of the two subclasses of cephalopods containing all the various taxa popularly thought of as "soft-bodied" or "shell-less". Unlike its extant sister group Nautiloidea, whose members have a rigid outer shell for protection, the coleoids have at most an internal shell called cuttlebone or gladius that is used for buoyancy or as muscle anchorage. Some species, notably incirrate octopuses, have lost their cuttlebone altogether, while in some it has been replaced by a chitinous support structure. A unique trait of the group is the ability to edit their own RNA.
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 speciose, 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). Only a handful of rare coiled species, the nautiluses, survive to the present day.
Plectronocerida is a primitive order from which subsequent cephalopod orders are ultimately derived.
The Ellesmerocerida is an order of primitive cephalopods belonging to the subclass Nautiloidea with a widespread distribution that lived during the Late Cambrian and Ordovician.
Ectenolites is a genus of small, slender, cylindrical Ellesmeroceratids that resemble Ellesmeroceras but are smaller and proportionally narrower. Septa, as typical for ellesmerocerids, are close spaced with shallow lobes on either flank. The body chamber is proportionally long, the shell itself slightly compressed. The dorsal side at the beginning of the shell, opposite the aperture and body chamber, is strongly convex so to produce a sense of endogastric curvature with the apex and siphuncle aligned.
Clarkoceras is a genus of breviconic ellesmerocerid cephalopods, one of only two genera known to have crossed from the Late Cambrian, Trempealeauan, into the Early Ordovician, Gasconadian. ; the other being Ectenolites.
Plectronoceras is the earliest known shelled cephalopod, dating to the Late Cambrian. None of the fossils are complete, and none show the apex or aperture of the shell. Approximately half of its shell was filled with septa; 7 were recorded in a 2 centimetres (0.79 in) shell. Its shell contains transverse septa separated by about half a millimetre, with a siphuncle on its concave side. Its morphology matches closely to that hypothesised for the last common ancestor of all cephalopods.
Knightoconus antarcticus is an extinct species of fossil monoplacophoran from the Cambrian Minaret Formation of Antarctica. It is thought to represent an ancestor to the cephalopods. It had a chambered conical shell, but lacked a siphuncle.
The Ellesmeroceratidae constitute a family within the cephalopod order Ellesmerocerida. They lived from the Upper Cambrian to the Lower Ordovician. They are characterized by straight and endogastric shells, often laterally compressed, so the dorso-ventral dimension is slightly greater than the lateral, with close spaced sutures having shallow lateral lobes and a generally large tubular ventro-marginal siphuncle with concave segments and irregularly spaced diaphragms. Connecting rings are thick and layered, externally straight but thickening inwardly with the maximum near the middle of the segment so as to leave concave depressions on internal siphuncle molds. Septal necks are typically orthochoanitic but vary in length from almost absent (achoanitic) to reaching halfway to the previous septum (hemichoanitic) and may even slope inwardly (loxochoanitic).
The Kirengellids are a group of problematic Cambrian fossil shells of marine organisms. The shells bear a number of paired muscle scars on the inner surface of the valve.
Oonoceras is an extinct genus of fossil cephalopods included in the nautiloid order Oncocerida and the family Oncoceratidae from the Middle Ordovician to Middle Silurian of North America and Europe, arbitrarily included in the Slender Oncoceratidae.
The cephalopods have a long geological history, with the first nautiloids found in late Cambrian strata, and purported stem-group representatives present in the earliest Cambrian lagerstätten.
Vologdinella is a poorly known genus of extinct animals of uncertain classification with small cylindrical shells. The animals are known from Middle Cambrian fossils from a Paleozoic limestone in the Chingiz Mountains of Kazakhstan. The genus was established by Russian paleontologist Zakhar Grigoryevich Balashov in 1962 for a single species, Vologdinella antiqua, which was originally described and illustrated as Orthoceras? antiquus by Aleksandr Grigoryevich Vologdin in 1931.
Jiagouceras is a genus of early primitive cephalopods from the Upper Cambrian of China, assigned to the Plectronoceratidae. The shell is small, nearly straight with a slight endogastric curvature and compressed cross section. The siphuncle is close to the ventral margin, with segments expanded into the chambers.
Plectronoceratoidea is a superorder or subclass containing primitive nautiloids from the Late Cambrian and Early Ordovician. This group is best considered a paraphyletic grade of early cephalopods, as it contains the ancestors of subsequent post-Cambrian cephalopod orders.
Paraplectronoceras is a genus of very early nautiloids from the middle Late Cambrian, named by Chen and Qi, 1979, type species Paraplectronoceras pyriforme, for small, endogastrically curved forms found in the upper Yenchou and Wanwankou members of the Fengshan Formation of northeastern China.
Shelbyoceras is a genus of Cambrian monoplacophora which was one of the genera mistaken for a cephalopod, since the characteristics differentiating monoplacophora from cephalopods are few. Shelbyoceras was reclassified based on a depressed groove that forms a band around the shell, which is similar to a feature seen in Hypseloconus. The septa in this genus are either closely or irregularly spaced.
Acaroceratidae is family of Upper Cambrian (Trempealeauan) nautiloid cephalopods included in the Ellesmerocerida that contains two known genera, Acaroceras and Weishanuceras, both found in northern China.
Eburoceras is an early nautiloid cephalopod from the Upper Yenchau and Wanwankau, Upper Cambrian Trempealeauan of China, assigned to the Ellesmeroceratidae.
References
 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(March 2015) |
- Chen Jun-yuan & Curt Teichert, 1983. Cambrian Cephalopods. Geology V.11, pp 647–650, Nov. 1983
- The Mollusca vol. 12, Paleontology and Neontology of Cephalopods M.R. Clarke & E.R Trueman eds, Academic Press.
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