Orthoceratidae is an extinct

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

of actively mobile

carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other sof ...

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head ...

s, subclass Nautiloidea, that lived in what would be

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, and

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from the Ordovician through

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

from 490—203.7

mya Mya may refer to: Brands and product names * Mya (program), an intelligent personal assistant created by Motorola * Mya (TV channel), an Italian Television channel * Midwest Young Artists, a comprehensive youth music program Codes * Burmese ...

, existing for approximately .

Taxonomy

Orthoceratidae was named by McCoy (1844) and assigned to the Orthocerida by Teichert and Miller (1939),(as Orthocerotidae);Sweet, Walter C., (1964), Nautiloidea --Orthocerida, in ''

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. Mollusca 3. pp K224-K231. to the Michelinoceratida by Flower (1962),R. H. Flower. 1962. Memoir 10, Part 2; Notes on the Michelinoceratida. New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Socorro NM. and to the Orthocerataceae by Sweet (1964). It has been subsequently included in the Orthocerataceae in Evans (1994) and in the Orthocerida in Evans (2005) and in Kröger et al. (2007).B. Kröger, M. S. Beresi, and E. Landing. 2007. Early orthoceratoid cephalopods from the Argentine Precordillera (Lower-Middle Ordovician). Journal of Paleontology 81(6):1266-1283 Flower showed in 1962 that Orthocerotidae used by Teichert and Miller (1939) is synonymous with Orthoceratide McCoy (1884).

Morphology

Members are characterised by long, slender, usually

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 d ...

(straight) but sometimes slightly curved shells, a central or subcentral orthochoanitic

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 ...

that is free of deposits, a long

body chamber The body whorl is part of the morphology of the shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk. In gastropods In gastropods, the ...

, and cylindrical or only slightly inflated connecting rings. Ornamentation may be in the form of longitudinal or transverse ribs and/or lirae, or the shell surface may be smooth.

References

* Dzik, Jerzy (1984) Phylogeny of the Nautiloidea, Palaeontologica Polonica, no. 43 {{Taxonbar, from=Q7104416 Orthocerida Prehistoric cephalopod families Ordovician first appearances Permian extinctions