Echioceras

Searched as Ophioceras. The Paleobiology Database treats Echioceras as the accepted name.

Ophioceras is a genus of closely coiled tarphycerid nautiloid cephalopods, the sole representatives of the family Ophidioceratidae, characterized by an evolute shell with narrow, subrounded, annulated whorls and a subcentral siphuncle composed of thin connecting rings that show no evidence of layering. The mature body chamber is strongly divergent and is the longest proportionally of any tarphycerid. The aperture has a deep hyponomic sinus and ocular sinuses, and so resembles some lituitids.

Echioceras

Kozuch · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. 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
EchioceratidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Ammonoidea
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Ammonoidea
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Ammonoidea
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda

Time the record covers

At least 237 million years on record.

The record covers at least 430.6 Mya to 192.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 443.1 Mya to 174.7 Mya.

Ordovician — about 0 of 56 occurrencesSilurian — about 13 of 56 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 0 of 56 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 0 of 56 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 56 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 56 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 56 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 56 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 43 of 56 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 56 occurrences448–439 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences439–430 Mya — about 3 occurrences430–421 Mya — about 10 occurrences421–411 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences207–197 Mya — about 13 occurrences197–188 Mya — about 27 occurrences188–179 Mya — about 2 occurrences179–169 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences430.6 Mya192.9 Mya448 Mya169 Mya

56 occurrences of Echioceras on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. 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

56 occurrences

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

15 formations

Allgäu — 47.72°N, 13.73°EAllgäu — 47.88°N, 14.41°EAllgäu — 47.18°N, 9.98°EAllgäu — 47.10°N, 9.78°EAllgäu — 47.25°N, 10.12°EMurray Ridge — 68.07°N, 135.42°WMurray Ridge — 67.97°N, 136.38°WMurray Ridge — 68.03°N, 135.43°WLower Lias — 51.80°N, 1.88°WHemse Beds — 57.28°N, 18.32°EHemse Beds — 57.23°N, 18.37°EKopanina — 50.00°N, 14.35°EKopanina — 49.96°N, 14.18°EKopanina — 49.93°N, 14.05°EKlinteberg Beds — 57.53°N, 18.43°ESlite Beds — 57.72°N, 18.80°EAdnet — 47.17°N, 10.01°ERacine — 43.05°N, 88.01°WSundre Beds — 57.53°N, 18.43°EAlmstrom Creek — 68.23°N, 135.93°WTolo Channel — 22.45°N, 114.28°EAllgäu — 47.79°N, 12.60°EAdnet — 46.01°N, 25.47°EPozary — 49.15°N, 13.57°E

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The named rock units Echioceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 22 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Echioceras and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Echioceras and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

205 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 30 sites for Echioceras, 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

20 references

Each of the 56 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. 8 further references are not listed. 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 Echioceras

Credit
Kozuch
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Echioceras 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.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itEchioceratidae through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hyatt 1867