Tajaroceras

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Tajaroceras
Temporal range: LOrdovician (Cassinian)
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Tajaroceras

Hook and Flower (1976)

Tajaroceras is an extinct slender cephalopod from the uppermost Lower Ordovician of western North America, belonging to the Orthocerid family Troedssonellidae.

Background

The shell of Tajaroceras is smooth and straight. The siphuncle which is at least 0.35 the shell diameter is subcentral. Septal necks are short and the connecting rings are thin and homogenous. The distinguishing feature of Tajaroceras lies within its siphuncle. Along the ventral side, within the siphuncle, is a continuous rod, much like that found in a group known as rod-bearing Baltoceratidae. On the dorsal side, overlying within, are annular deposits that grow forward to form a continuous lining that ultimately rests against the ventral rod, leaving a small opening slightly above the center. The camerae contain deposits of organic calcite.

Tajaroceras, first described by Hook and Flower (1976), has been found in the Upper Cassinian Wahwah Limestone in Western Utah and in the equivalent Florida Mountains Formation in Southern New Mexico and is the probable ancestor of the Troedssonellidae, being followed in overlapping sequence by Buttsoceras . The type, Tajaroceras wardae, was found 55–65 ft above the base of the Wahwah Ls in the Ibex area of western Utah.

Tajaroceras is named for Jane Shaw Ward's character, the Tejar.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

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Lambeoceras is a genus of rather large actinocerids with a convexly lenticular cross section from the Upper Ordovician of North America and the sole representative of the family Lambeoceratidae.

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Wardoceras is an extinct nautiloid genus from the late Early Ordovician of Western Utah, assigned to the orthocerid family, Michelinoceratidae

Baltoceratidae is an extinct family of orthoconic cephalopods belonging to the subclass Nautiloidea endemic to what would be Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America during the Ordovician living from about 480–460 mya, existing for approximately 20 million years.

Geisonoceratidae family of molluscs

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Orthoceratoidea Subclass of cephalopods

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<i>Armenoceratidae</i> family of molluscs

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Troedssonellidae family of molluscs

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Rangeroceras is an extinct orthoceratoid cephalopod genus that lived in what is now western North America during the latter part of the Early Ordovician.

Veneficoceras is a genus of the rod-bearing Baltoceratidae, an extinct cephalopod family with characteristics of the orthoceratoid Dissidocerida, found in Cassinianage, Lower Ordovician, limestone in western Utah.

Bajkaloceras is a straight-shelled orthoceroid, and possibly a member of the Intejocerida, from the Angara River basin in central Russia, named by Balashov in 1962. Its age, as given in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology is Arenigian.

Intejocerida is the name given to a group of generally straight shelled nautiloid cephalopods originally found in Lower and Middle Ordovician sediments in the Angara River basin in Russia; defined in the Treatise as an order, and combined there with the Endocerida in the Endoceratoidea.

Murrayoceras is a nautilid cephalopod included in the orthocerid family Baltoceratidae, widespread in the Middle Ordovician of North America, characterized by a depressed orthoconic shell with a subtriangular cross section and flattened venter and a proportionally large ventral siphuncle, 0.15 to 0.3 the dorso-ventral shell diameter. Septa are close spaced with sutures forming broad lobes on the upper flanks and ventral surface.

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