Lituites - Citizendia

Lituites
Fossil range: Ordovician

A specimen of Lituites littuus from the Hunan Province of China

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Cephalopoda
Subclass:	Nautiloidea
Order:	Barrandeocerida
Family:	Lituitidae
Genus:	Lituites

Species

L. The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic era, and covers the time between 488 ( is a province of China, located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, meaning China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Molluscs are animals belonging to the phylum Mollusca. There are around 250000 extant Species within the phylum with an estimated 70000 The cephalopods ( Greek plural (kephalópoda "head-feet" are the Mollusc class Cephalopoda characterized by Nautiloids are a group of marine Mollusks in the subclass Nautiloidea, which all possess an external shell the best-known example being the modern Nautiluses In Biology, a species is one of the basic units of Biological classification and a Taxonomic rank. breynius
L. littuus
L. undatus
L. convolvans
L. angulatus

Lituites is an extinct genus of the nautiloids, and is one of the most primitive known cephalopods. A genus (plural genera from Γένος Latin genus "descent family type gender" is a low-level Taxonomic Nautiloids are a group of marine Mollusks in the subclass Nautiloidea, which all possess an external shell the best-known example being the modern Nautiluses The cephalopods ( Greek plural (kephalópoda "head-feet" are the Mollusc class Cephalopoda characterized by It originated in the Ordovician period, around 460 million years ago. The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic era, and covers the time between 488 Fossils are mainly found in the region of Hunan, China, but they have also been found in Northern Europe. FOSSIL is a standard protocol for allowing serial communication for Telecommunications programs under the DOS Operating system. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National The genus Lituites includes some of the first cephalopods that could actively swim.

Lituites had early chambers rolled into plane spiral, like ammonites. Ammonites are an extinct group of marine animals of the subclass Ammonoidea in the class Cephalopoda phylum The shell whorls may or may not have joined but were never closely in contact with one another on dorsal side. After the juvenile stage, where the shell begins in a coil, the adult animal would then grow a long, straight or slightly curved section. The shells are distinctive among cephalopod fossils by having this long section and a small ammonite-like coil on the end, looking rather like a traditional shepherd’s crook in form.

In adults, the animal's body chamber would occupy the whole of the uncoiled part of the shell. This living chamber is characterized by a slit-shaped mouth opening that broadens into a spout. The principal species are Lituites breynius, L. littuus, L. undatus, L. convolvans, and L. angulatus.

The name also appears in the adjective "lituiticone", which means "coiled in the early stage and later uncoiled. "

See also