Pseudorthoceratidae
Pseudorthoceratidae is an extinct family of actively mobile aquatic carnivorous cephalopods belonging to the subclass Orthoceratoidea. ITt is endemic to what would be North America, Asia, and Europe during the Silurian living from 460.5 to 251 Ma, existing for approximately 209.5 million years.

Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com ) · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikidata/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
- PseudorthoceridaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Time the record covers
At least 195 million years on record.
The record covers at least 449.6 Mya to 254.14 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 457.3 Mya to 251.902 Mya.
476 occurrences of Pseudorthoceratidae on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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
476 occurrences- Ordovicianunder 1%
- Silurian1%
- Devonian8%
- Carboniferous67%
- Permian23%
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
127 formations
- Graham Formation · Cisco Group47
- Wewoka Formation23
- Hale Formation · Morrow Group23
- Fayetteville Formation20
- Second Abden Shale Formation17
- Ruddell Formation12
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The named rock units Pseudorthoceratidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 103 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 56 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Pseudorthoceratidae and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Pseudorthoceratidae and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
1,995 taxa- Pseudorthoceras knoxense111 sites
- Pseudorthoceras62 sites
- Crinoidea42 sites
- Glabrocingulum grayvillense30 sites
- Trepospira illinoisensis26 sites
- Crurithyris planoconvexa24 sites
- Euphemites carbonarius24 sites
- Echinoidea23 sites
- Anthraconeilo taffiana20 sites
- Ammodiscus19 sites
- Polidevcia bellistriata19 sites
- Asteroidea18 sites
- Bairdia18 sites
- Bryozoa18 sites
- Gastrioceras18 sites
- Ianthinopsis18 sites
- Meekospira peracuta18 sites
- Nuculopsis girtyi18 sites
- Plagioglypta18 sites
- Pseudozygopleurids indet.18 sites
- Ammobaculites17 sites
- Derbyia crassa17 sites
- Dolorthoceras17 sites
- Earlandinita17 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 394 sites for Pseudorthoceratidae, and this reads 240 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
110 references- Carboniferous Cephalopods of Arkansas104
- Revision of some common Carboniferous genera of North American orthocerid nautiloids49
- The surficial geology, paleontology, and paleoecology of the Finis Shale (Pennsylvanian, Lower Virgilian) in Jack County, Texas46
- Marine Communities of a Portion of the Wewoka Formation (Pennsylvanian) in Hughes County, Oklahoma19
- The paleoecology of a Lower Carboniferous marine transgression18
- Nautiloids before and during the ammonoid origin in a Siluro–Devonian section of the Tafilalt (Morocco)15
- Desmoinesian Brachiopoda and Mollusca from southwest Missouri13
- Invertebrate Faunas from The Blaine and The Dog Creek Formations of the Permain Leonard Series10
- Oases of biodiversity: Early Devonian palaeoecology at Hamar Laghdad, Morocco9
- Kotlyar et al., 19838
- Early and Middle Devonian cephalopods from Hamar Laghdad (Tafilalt, Morocco) and remarks on epicoles and cameral deposits6
- Early Permian fossil communities in northeastern Nevada and northwestern Utah6
Each of the 476 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. 98 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 Pseudorthoceratidae
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com )
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Pseudorthoceratidae 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 itPseudorthocerida through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Flower and Caster 1935