Pohlsepia

Pohlsepia mazonensis
Temporal range: Pennsylvanian
Photograph and drawing of holotype.
Click on image for details.
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

  1. 1 2 3 Kluessendorf, Joanne; Doyle, Peter. "Pohlsepia mazonensis, An Early 'Octopus' From The Carboniferous Of Illinois, USA". Palaeontology. 43 (5): 919–926. doi:10.1111/1475-4983.00155.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/10/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.