Ormoceras

Ormoceras is an actinocerid nautiloid genus and type for the family Ormoceratidae, found in North America from the late Chazyan through the early Cincinnatian of the Middle and Upper Ordovician, but which continued through the Devonian worldwide.

Ormoceras

Canadian Institute · Public Domain · 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
OrmoceratidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Actinocerida
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Actinocerida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Actinocerida
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda

Time the record covers

At least 95 million years on record.

The record covers at least 468 Mya to 372.15 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 478.8 Mya to 368.5 Mya.

Ordovician — about 63 of 74 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 4 of 74 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 7 of 74 occurrencesDevonian481–477 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences477–473 Mya — about 3 occurrences473–470 Mya — about 5 occurrences470–466 Mya — about 8 occurrences466–462 Mya — about 7 occurrences462–458 Mya — about 9 occurrences458–454 Mya — about 9 occurrences454–450 Mya — about 11 occurrences450–447 Mya — about 8 occurrences447–443 Mya — about 2 occurrences435–431 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences431–427 Mya — about 1 occurrence427–424 Mya — about 2 occurrences424–420 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences420–416 Mya — about 1 occurrence416–412 Mya — about 2 occurrences412–408 Mya — about 1 occurrence408–405 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences405–401 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences401–397 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences397–393 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences374–370 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences370–366 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences468 Mya372.15 Mya481 Mya366 Mya

74 occurrences of Ormoceras 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

74 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

36 formations

Shan Majiagou — 39.67°N, 118.26°EShan Majiagou — 39.00°N, 118.00°EShan Majiagou — 39.00°N, 115.00°EShan Majiagou — 36.00°N, 114.00°EShan Majiagou — 38.00°N, 114.00°EShan Majiagou — 40.00°N, 112.00°EShan Majiagou — 41.00°N, 123.00°EShan Majiagou — 40.00°N, 123.00°EHarding — 38.00°N, 105.00°WXia Majiagou — 40.00°N, 118.00°EXia Majiagou — 41.00°N, 118.00°EXia Majiagou — 42.00°N, 126.00°ELower Setul — 6.45°N, 100.20°ELower Setul — 6.62°N, 100.22°ELower Setul — 6.37°N, 99.97°EMaggol — 37.15°N, 128.92°EMaggol — 37.16°N, 128.88°ERead Bay — 74.70°N, 94.82°WHarding Sandstone — 38.47°N, 105.27°WHarding Sandstone — 38.44°N, 105.28°WScales Shale — 43.00°N, 91.00°WFengfeng — 36.00°N, 114.00°EChedao — 37.00°N, 107.00°EChedao — 36.00°N, 107.00°EShuiquanlin — 37.00°N, 107.00°EShuiquanlin — 36.00°N, 107.00°EMaJiaGou — 37.00°N, 118.00°EMaJiaGou — 42.00°N, 126.00°EAmadjuak — 65.25°N, 73.17°WDuwibong — 37.19°N, 128.74°ESchoharie Grit — 42.67°N, 74.31°WSchoharie Grit — 42.60°N, 74.01°WTyrone Limestone — 37.82°N, 84.72°WTyrone Limestone — 37.83°N, 84.55°WKnoppenbiessen — 50.97°N, 7.17°EDubuque — 45.00°N, 93.00°WMaquoketa — 45.00°N, 93.00°WBeiYanZhuang — 37.00°N, 118.00°ERed River — 50.00°N, 100.00°WEllis Bay — 49.83°N, 64.38°WLyckholm — 59.00°N, 25.00°EPyatipaltsevskaya — 72.00°N, 52.00°E

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The named rock units Ormoceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ormoceras and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Ormoceras and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

493 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 70 sites for Ormoceras, 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

33 references

Each of the 74 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. 21 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 Ormoceras

Credit
Canadian Institute
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ormoceras 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 itOrmoceratidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Stokes 1840