Orthoceras
Sign in to saveOrthoceras, from Ancient Greek ὀρθός (orthós), meaning "straight", and κέρας (kéras), meaning "horn", 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 and misspelled as Orthocera, Orthocerus, or Orthoceros.
Wikidata facts
- Parent taxon
- Orthoceratidae
- Image
- Orthoceras BW.jpg
Show 4 more facts
- different from
- Orthoceras
- Commons category
- Orthoceras
- taxon name
- Orthoceras
- taxon rank
- genus
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Encyclopedic overview
5 sectionsContents
- History of the name
- Confusion with ''Baculites''
- See also
- References
- External links
Orthoceras, from Ancient Greek ὀρθός (orthós), meaning "straight", and κέρας (kéras), meaning "horn", 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 and misspelled as Orthocera, Orthocerus, or Orthoceros.
Orthoceras was formerly thought to have had a worldwide distribution due to the genus' use as a wastebasket taxon for numerous species of conical-shelled nautiloids throughout the Paleozoic and Triassic. Since this work was carried out and re-cataloging of the genus, Orthoceras sensu stricto refers to Orthoceras regulare, of Ordovician-aged Baltic Sea limestones of Sweden and neighboring areas.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Orthoceras” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.