Marine invertebrates: ancient cephalopods
In the days of simple pigeonhole systematics, many fossils could be filed under so-called nautiloids. In fact, the relatively simple shells and phragmocones only show that they originated before the evolutionary stage of ammonites and squid. That only the nautiloids have survived to the present day obscures the great phylogenetic diversity of the ancient cephalopods, the Palcephalopoda. While experts discuss the balanced position of elongated Ordovician forms, palaeoartists are allowed to experiment a little more freely. An Ordovician Endoceras as a bottom-crawler is rather provocative. The buoyancy of chambered shells is a valid basic assumption, even if there may be different interpretations regarding the horizontal position and coloration of Orthoceras. The position of the operculum in the active state was also included only cautiously. For the coiled forms, a close comparison with modern representatives such as Nautilus is obvious, especially as the Middle Jurassic genus Cenoceras hardly differs from it. The more squared cross-section of Germanonautilus from the Triassic can be completed by rows of nubs.
digital painting, 2024
academic education, Tech.Univ. Bergakademie Freiberg
