Rudists

Rudists
Temporal range: Late Jurassic–Late Cretaceous
Rudist bivalves from the Cretaceous of the Oman Mountains, United Arab Emirates; scale bar is 10 mm
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Bivalvia
Infraclass: Heteroconchia
Subterclass: Euheterodonta
Superorder: Imparidentia
Order: Hippuritida
Families

See text

Rudist bivalve, Maurens Formation, Upper Cretaceous, southwestern France

Rudists are a group of extinct box-, tube- or ring-shaped marine heterodont bivalves belonging to the order Hippuritida that arose during the Late Jurassic and became so diverse during the Cretaceous that they were major reef-building organisms in the Tethys Ocean, until their complete extinction at the close of the Cretaceous.