Valcouroceratidae

Valcouroceratidae
Temporal range: M-U Ordovician
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Subclass: Nautiloidea
Order: Oncocerida
Family: Valcouroceratidae
Flower (1945)

The Valcouroceratidae is an oncocerid family from the middle and upper Ordovician, mainly of North America, consisting of genera characterized by exogastricly curved cyrtoconic and breviconic shells that change ontogeneticially from compressed to depressed or subtriangular and in which the siphuncle in ventral and actinosiphonate.

Generic composition

The Valcouroceratidae comprises eight genera, three of which, Valcouroceras, Augustoceras, and Actinomorpha, were named by Flower in 1943 and 1946 and five of which, Fayettoceras, Kindleoceras, Manitoulinoceras, Minganoceras, and Staufferoceras, were named previously by Foeste between 1924 and 1938. Flower established the family Valcouroceratidae in 1945, based on Valcouroceras, which he named in 1943. All eight genera were included as late as 1950 where they rest today.

References

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