Clinoceratidae is an extinct

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

of actively mobile

carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose nutrition and energy requirements are met by consumption of animal tissues (mainly mu ...

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan Taxonomic rank, class Cephalopoda (Greek language, Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral symm ...

of the order

Orthocerida Orthocerida, from Ancient Greek ὀρθός (''orthós''), meaning "straight", and κέρας (''kéras''), meaning "horn", also known as the Michelinocerida, is an order of extinct Orthoceratoidea, orthoceratoid cephalopods that lived from the ...

that lived in what would be

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

and

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

during the middle

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

through Early Silurian from 466–443.7 mya, existing for approximately .

Taxonomy

Clinoceratidae was named by Flower (1946). Its type is '' Clinoceras''. It was assigned to Michelinoceratida by Flower (1962).R. H. Flower. 1962. Part 1, Revision of Buttsoceras, Part 2, Notes on the Michelinoceratida. State Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Memoir 10:1-58

Morphology

The shell is usually long, and may be straight ("

orthoconic An orthocone is the long, cone-shaped shell belonging to several species of ancient nautiloid cephalopod—the prehistoric ancestors of today's marine cephalopod mollusks, including the cuttlefishes, nautiluses, octopuses and squids.; During the ...

") or gently curved. In life, these animals may have been similar to the modern

squid A squid (: squid) is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight cephalopod limb, arms, and two tentacles in the orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, and Bathyteuthida (though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also ...

, except for the long shell.

References

* ''Fossils'' (Smithsonian Handbooks) by David Ward {{Taxonbar, from=Q5133882 Ordovician cephalopods Silurian cephalopods Ordovician cephalopods of Europe Ordovician cephalopods of North America Silurian cephalopods of North America Silurian animals of Europe Darriwilian first appearances Silurian extinctions Orthocerida