Pohlsepia

Pohlsepia
Temporal range: Pennsylvanian
Photograph and drawing of holotype.
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Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Stem group: Octopoda
Genus: Pohlsepia
Species: P. mazonensis
Binomial name
Pohlsepia mazonensis
Kluessendorf & Doyle, 2000

Pohlsepia mazonensis is the earliest described octopod, dated at approximately 296 million years old. The species is known from a single exceptionally preserved fossil discovered in the Pennsylvanian Francis Creek Shale of the Carbondale Formation, north-east Illinois, United States.[1]

Pohlsepia mazonensis is named after its discoverer, James Pohl, and the type locality, Mazon Creek. Its habitat was the shallows seawards of a major river delta in what at that time was an inland ocean between the Midwest and the Appalachians.[1]

The type specimen is reposited at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.[1]

See also

References

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