Belemnitella

Belemnitella
Temporal range: 84.9–66.043 Ma
Belemnitella americana
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Order: Belemnitida
Family: Belemnitellidae
Genus: Belemnitella
d'Orbigny, 1840
Species

Belemnitella is a genus of belemnite from the Late Cretaceous of Europe and North America. Belemnitella was a squidlike animal, probably related to the ancestors of modern squids and cuttlefish. The shell was internal. The rostrum or guard is found the most often and possesses a distinctive slit at its ventral surface and a ridge on the dorsal surface. The phragmocone (internal shell) has a small protoconch at its tip, and fit into the cavity and the guard. It also had septa and a ventral siphuncle (tube filled with living tissues running through chambers) within the phragmocone, projecting forward as a beak-like blade.

It had growth layers like tree rings, seen within the cavity of the organism and when the cone is sectioned. The cone was light-brown and glassy in appearance. It is distributed widely in North America. A specimen of a belemnoid had been found in Germany, clearly preserving 10 tentacles as carbon films, showing that belemnoids are similar to squids.[1][2][3]

Belemnitella americana, is the source of the Pee Dee Belemnite, reference standard in research.

  1. ^ Fossils (Smithsonian Handbooks) by David Ward (Page 163)
  2. ^ National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Fossils (Page 536)
  3. ^ Neal L. Larson; Steven D. Jorgensen; Robert A. Farrar & Peter L. Larson (1997). Ammonites and the Other Cephalopods of the Pierre Seaway. Geoscience Press, Inc. p. 94. ISBN 0-945005-34-2.