''Lituites'' is an extinct

nautiloid 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 ...

genus from the

Middle Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. The ...

and type for the Lituitidae (a tarphycerid family) that in some more recent taxonomies has been classified with the orthocerids and listed under the order

Lituitida Lituitida is an order of orthoceratoid cephalopods. They correspond to the family Lituitidae of the Treatise (Furnish & Glenister, 1964), reranked as an order and combined with other orthoceratoids. They are considered to be more closely relate ...

. Fossils have been found in

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, and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. ''Lituites'' produced a shell with a planospirally coiled juvenile portion at the apex, reflective of its tarphycerid ancestry, followed by a long, moderately expanding, generally straight,

orthoconic 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 ...

adult section with a subdorsal

siphuncle The siphuncle is a strand of tissue passing longitudinally through the shell of a cephalopod mollusk. Only cephalopods with chambered shells have siphuncles, such as the extinct ammonites and belemnites, and the living nautiluses, cuttlefish, and ...

connecting the chambers. The adult body chamber may equal or exceed the length of the chambered part of the orthoconic section. The mature aperture has a pair of pronounced ventrolateral

lappets A lappet is a decorative flap, fold or hanging part of a headdress or garment. Lappets were a feature of women's headgear until the early twentieth century, and are still a feature of religious garments. Examples of lappets are to be found on the ...

and a similar but shorter pair of

dorsolateral Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position prov ...

lappets.

Lituites perfectus Ordovician Niederfinow Germany Museum fuer Naturkunde Berlin files

''Lituites'' gives its name to the term "lituiticone" which refers to a shell that is coiled in the early growth stage and later becomes uncoiled.

References

*Flower & Kummel, 1950. A Classification of the Nautiloidia. Jour Paleontology, V.24, N.5, pp 604–616, Sept *Furnish & Glenister, 1964, Nautiloidea -Tarphycerida.

Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology The ''Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology'' (or ''TIP'') published by the Geological Society of America and the University of Kansas Press, is a definitive multi-authored work of some 50 volumes, written by more than 300 paleontologists, and co ...

Part K... Nautiloidea *Mutvei, H. 2002. Connecting ring structure and its significance for classification of the orthoceratid cephalopods. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 47 (1): 157–168. {{Taxonbar, from=Q144179 Nautiloids Ordovician cephalopods Ordovician animals of Asia Ordovician Argentina