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The Cretaceous is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of the entire Phanerozoic. The name is derived from the Latin creta, "chalk", which is abundant in the latter half of the period. It is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation Kreide.
Ammonoids are extinct spiral shelled cephalopods comprising the subclass Ammonoidea. They are more closely related to living coleoids than they are to shelled nautiloids. The earliest ammonoids appeared during the Devonian, with the last species vanishing during or soon after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. They are often called ammonites, which is most frequently used for members of the order Ammonitida, the only living group of ammonoids from the Jurassic up until their extinction.
Janumys is a genus of extinct mammal of the middle Cretaceous. It was a member of the order of Multituberculata. It lived in North America during the Mesozoic era, also known as the "age of the reptiles." It has been provisionally placed within the informal suborder "Plagiaulacida".
Cycads are seed plants that typically have a stout and woody (ligneous) trunk with a crown of large, hard, stiff, evergreen and (usually) pinnate leaves. The species are dioecious, that is, individual plants of a species are either male or female. Cycads vary in size from having trunks only a few centimeters to several meters tall. They typically grow very slowly and live very long. Because of their superficial resemblance, they are sometimes mistaken for palms or ferns, but they are not closely related to either group.
The Nautilida constitute a large and diverse order of generally coiled nautiloid cephalopods that began in the mid Paleozoic and continues to the present with a single family, the Nautilidae which includes two genera, Nautilus and Allonautilus, with six species. All told, between 22 and 34 families and 165 to 184 genera have been recognised, making this the largest order of the subclass Nautiloidea.
Belemnoids are an extinct group of marine cephalopod, very similar in many ways to the modern squid. Like them, the belemnoids possessed an ink sac, but, unlike the squid, they possessed ten arms of roughly equal length, and no tentacles. The name "belemnoid" comes from the Greek word βέλεμνον, belemnon meaning "a dart or arrow" and the Greek word είδος, eidos meaning "form".
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.
Baculites is an extinct genus of heteromorph ammonite cephalopods with almost straight shells. The genus, which lived worldwide throughout most of the Late Cretaceous, and which briefly survived the K-Pg mass extinction event, was named by Lamarck in 1799.
Orthoceras is a genus of extinct nautiloid cephalopod restricted to Middle Ordovician-aged marine limestones of the Baltic States and Sweden. This genus is sometimes called Orthoceratites. Note it is sometimes misspelled as Orthocera, Orthocerus or Orthoceros.
Endocerida is an extinct nautiloid order, a group of cephalopods from the Lower Paleozoic with cone-like deposits in their siphuncle. Endocerida was a diverse group of cephalopods that lived from the Early Ordovician possibly to the Late Silurian. Their shells were variable in form. Some were straight (orthoconic), others curved (cyrtoconic); some were long (longiconic), others short (breviconic). Some long-shelled forms like Endoceras attained shell lengths close to 6 metres (20 ft). The related Cameroceras is anecdotally reported to have reached lengths approaching 9 metres (30 ft), but these claims are problematic. The overwhelming majority of endocerids and nautiloids in general are much smaller, usually less than a meter long when fully grown.
An orthocone is an unusually long straight shell of a nautiloid cephalopod. During the 18th and 19th centuries, all shells of this type were named Orthoceras, creating a wastebasket taxon, but it is now known that many groups of nautiloids developed or retained this type of shell.
Orthocerida, also known as the Michelinocerida, is an order of extinct orthoceratoid cephalopods that lived from the Early Ordovician possibly to the Late Triassic. A fossil found in the Caucasus suggests they may even have survived until the Early Cretaceous, and the Eocene fossil Antarcticeras is sometimes considered a descendant of the orthocerids although this is disputed. They were most common however from the Ordovician to the Devonian.
Desmoceratidae is a family belonging to the ammonite superfamily Desmoceratoidea. They are an extinct group of ammonoids, shelled cephalopods related to squid, belemnites, octopuses, and cuttlefish, and more distantly to the nautiloids, that lived between the Lower Cretaceous and Upper Cretaceous.
Heminautilus is an extinct genus of nautiloids from the nautilacean family Cenoceratidae that lived during the Early Cretaceous. Fossils of Heminautilus have been registered in rocks of Barremian and Aptian age. Nautiloids are a subclass of shelled cephalopods that were once diverse and numerous but are now represented by only a handful of species.
Sequoiadendron is a genus of evergreen trees, with two species, only one of which survives to the present:
The Paracenoceratidae are an extinct family of prehistoric nautiloids. The cephalopods lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
Gachedili Canyon Natural Monument also known as Abasha Canyon Natural Monument and Martvili Canyon is an Abasha river erosion canyon located in Samegrelo region of Western Georgia in Martvili Municipality near Gachedili village, 240 meters above sea level. The water in the Abasha river has deep green color in the canyon. The Gachedili Canyon Natural Monument is located 6 km from the popular Balda Canyon Natural Monument. A canyon visitor center is located in the village Great Inchkhuri on the northern outskirts of the Martvili.
Azabbaremys is an extinct genus of bothremydid pleurodiran turtle that was discovered in the Teberemt Formation of Mali. It was described in 2001, based on a skull that had been recovered in an expedition in 1981. The genus consists solely of the type species Azabbaremys moragjonesi. The genus name is derived from Azabbar, a monster in Tamasheq folk stories. The species is named for Morag Jones, a research student who participated in the discovery of the specimen and died in the expedition. Azabbaremys is most closely related to another Paleocene side-necked turtle, Acleistochelys.
Mixosiphonata is an extinct order of nautiloids that lived from the Carboniferous to the Early Cretaceous. It currently includes the genera Boggyoceras, Zhuravlevia, and possibly Ctenobactrites. They were the latest surviving orthoconic nautiloids, which had otherwise gone extinct in the Late Triassic.
Boggyoceras is an extinct genus of nautiloids that lived during the Carboniferous. It contains one valid species, B. centrale. Its fossils have been found in the Boggy Formation of Oklahoma.
References
- 1 2 3 Doguzhaeva, L.A. (1994). "An Early Cretaceous orthocerid cephalopod from north-western Caucasus". Palaeontology. 37 (4): 889–899.
- ↑ Mutvei, H. (2017). "The new order Mixosiphonata (Cephalopoda: Nautiloidea) and related taxa; estimations of habitat depth based on shell structure". GFF. 139 (3): 219–232. Bibcode:2017GFF...139..219M. doi:10.1080/11035897.2017.1330278.