Sunday, July 24, 2011

Lituites.

Lituites is a peculiar genus of nautiloid cephalopod from the Ordovician Period. Its shell had a coiled tip. Juvenile Lituites did not have a conical part of the shell, they only had the coiled part of the shell. Then they later grew the conical part of the shell as they got older. Lituites was about seven inches long.


Lituites probably had to avoid predators such as Cameroceras and Anomalocaris. Lituites has been found in the United States (New York), China, Europe, and South America.

© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com


Some fossils of Lituites are similar to those of Orthoceras, because the fossils are the same color and preserved in the same way. But Orthoceras did not have the coil at the tip of the shell.

3 comments:

  1. Could these be a transitional form between Orthoceras and the fully coiled nautiluses of today?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here is a guy who really likes fossils:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq6RnKGHInw

    (Art will explain to you who Simon Conway Morris is)

    ReplyDelete
  3. You know it! I just got Art a copy of The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals. He already knew who SCM was from watching one of those "beginnings of life" documentaries. (Note: I just asked and he said it was Origins: Battle for the Planet).

    ReplyDelete