Bathmoceras

Bathmoceras
Temporal range: Middle and Late Ordovician
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Subclass: Nautiloidea
Order: Ellesmerocerida
Family: Bathmoceratidae
Genus: Bathmoceras
Barrande, 1867

Bathmoceras is a primitive cephalopod genus from the Middle and Upper Ordovician, type for the family Bathmoceratidae, order Ellesmerocerida.

Furnish and Glenister, 1964 include Eothinceras in the Bathmoceratidae along with Bathmoceras. Flower, 1964, separates the two genera into their respective families which he included in his suborder, Cyrtoceritina

The shells of Bathmoceras are rather large, straight or faintly exogastric. Sutures are simple except for a sharp mid ventral saddle. The siphuncle is large and near the venter, in which the segments have a slightly sinuous outline. Septal necks are rather long. Most diagnostically, the connecting rings are thickened into forward projecting lobes that may extend internally two or three segments within the siphuncle.

Bathmoceras is of Middle and Late Ordovician age and has been found in northern and central Europe and in the Macdonnell Ranges in central Australia.

At one time[1] Bathmoceras was thought to have possibly given rise to Polydesmia, once thought to have been the ancestral actinocerid. Since then revision of actinocerid phylogeny and of Ordovician stratigraphy in east Asia have cast doubts on this hypothesis.[2]

Derivation

Bathmoceras is most likely derived from Eothinoceras through lengthening of the septal necks and of the inward projections of the connecting rings in a forward direction.[3] Eothinoceras differs in that the septal necks are vestigial[3] rather than being somewhat long as in Bathmoceras and that the inward projections of the connecting rings point straight in rather than projecting forward. Both are straight shelled or slightly exogastric. Eothinoceras is also apparently more slender.[3]

Furnish and Glenister also included Eothinceras in the family Bathmoceratidae.[4] R.H. Flower separates the two genera into their respective families which he included in his suborder, Cyrtocerinina.[3]

Preservation and cccurrence

Bathmoceras is found in Europe and Australia, mostly as internal molds in sandy sediments.[3] One species B linnarsoni was found in limestone in Sweden which allowed Holms to conduct thin section studies.

Paleoecology and lifestyle

The common occurrence in sandy sediments indicates that Bathmoceras lived over sandy bottom, although some species obviously did spend time over carbonate shelves.

The straight or slightly upwardly curved, exogastric shells with weighted ventral siphuncles indicate a normal horizontal orientation with the aperture facing forward. They were apparently active predators with some degree of mobility. As for the peculiar internal structure of the siphuncle, beyond providing ballast, no reason has been given.

References

  1. ↑ Flower, R.H. (1957). Studies of the Actinoceratida.; Memoir 2;. New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Socorro, NM.
  2. ↑ Flower, R.H. (1976). New American Wutinoceratidae with Review of Actinoceroid Occurrences in Eastern Hemisphere; Part I - Memoir 28. New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Socorro, NM.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Flower, R.H. (1964). The Nautiloid Order Ellesmeroceratida (Cephalopoda)Memoir 12. New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Socorro, NM.
  4. ↑ Furnish, W.M; Glenister, Brian F. (1964). Ellesmerocerida in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Socorro, NM.