Curtoceras

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- TrocholitidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB, for Tarphycerida
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Time the record covers
At least 21 million years on record.
The record covers at least 475.3 Mya to 453.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 486.85 Mya to 452.8 Mya.
21 occurrences of Curtoceras on record, most of them in the Ordovician. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
21 occurrences- Ordovician100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
10 formations
- Fort Cassin Formation · Beekmantown Group7
- Ninemile Formation2
- San Juan Formation2
- Navas de Estena Formation2
- Kandle Formation2
- Romaine Formation2
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The named rock units Curtoceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Curtoceras and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Curtoceras and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
312 taxa- Illaenus5 sites
- Protocycloceras lamarcki5 sites
- Centrotarphyceras seelyi4 sites
- Cassinoceras wortheni3 sites
- Dianulites3 sites
- Didymograptus3 sites
- Esthoniopora curvata3 sites
- Eurystomites amplectens3 sites
- Eurystomites kelloggi3 sites
- Glyptograptus3 sites
- Lawrenceoceras confertissimum3 sites
- Proterocameroceras brainerdi3 sites
- Pseudoasaphus tecticaudatus tecticaudatus3 sites
- Pseudoclimacograptus3 sites
- Pseudolingula3 sites
- Sinuites rugulosus3 sites
- Sphaeronites pomum3 sites
- <Genus T1, Aristocystitid echinoderm>2 sites
- Ancistroceras2 sites
- Annamitella2 sites
- Aserioceras purtsensis2 sites
- Bifoveoceras2 sites
- Calix2 sites
- Cameroceras2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Curtoceras, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
10 references- Cephalopoda of the Beekmantown and Chazy formations of the Champlain Basin6
- Stratigrafia viruskoy i kharjuskoy seriy (ordovik) Sevemoy Estonii. [Stratigraphy of the Viruan and Harjuan Series (Ordovician) in North Estonia]3
- Estudio bioestratigrafico del Llanvirn y Llandeilo (Dobrotiviense) en la parte meridional de la zona Centroiberica (España)2
- Ordovician Brachiopods, Trilobites, and Stratigraphy in Eastern and Central Nevada2
- The Viruan (Middle Ordovician) of Kinnekulle and northern Billingen, Vastergotland2
- Ozarkian and Canadian cephalopods, Part I: Nautilicones2
- Cephalopods from reef limestone of the Vasalemma Formation, northern Estonia (latest Sandbian, Upper Ordovician) and the establishment of a local warm-water fauna1
- Cephalopods and Paleoenvironments of the Fort Cassin Formation (Upper Lower Ordovician), eastern New York and adjacent Vermont1
- Formacion San Juan en la Quebrada de Las Lajas, Sierra Chica de Zonda, Provincia de San Juan1
- Nautiloideos Ordovicicos de la Precordillera Argentina. Fauna de Huaco, Provincia de San Juan1
Each of the 21 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Curtoceras
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Curtoceras was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itTrocholitidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ulrich et al. 1942