''Asturoceras'' is an extinct late Paleozoic
ammonoid
Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) ...
cephalopod genus belonging to the
Goniatitida
Goniatids, informally goniatites, are Ammonoidea, ammonoid cephalopods that form the order Goniatitida, derived from the more primitive Agoniatitida during the Middle Devonian some 390 million years ago (around Eifelian stage). Goniatites (goniat ...
, named by Ruzhencev and Bogoslovskaya in 1969.
As for its family, the Dimorphoceratidae, the shell of ''Asturoceras'' is completely involute, with a closed umbilicus, and the ventral lobe becomes extremely wide during growth by subdivision. In ''Asturoceras'' at maturity the ventral lobe has six bifid branches.
Fossils of this genus were found in Spain
and England.
Related genera
*''
Dimorphoceras''
*''
Trizonoceras''
References
Paleobiology Database ''Asturoceras'' entry
Dimorphoceratidae
Goniatitida genera
Carboniferous ammonites
Ammonites of Europe
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