The Pinacocerataceae are generally smooth, compressed, evolute to involute ammonoids from the Triassic, belonging to the Ceratitida

Ceratitida

The Ceratitida is an order that contains almost all ammonoid cephalopod genera from the Triassic as well as ancestral forms from the Upper Permian, the exception being the phylloceratids which gave rise to the great diversity of post Triassic ammonites....

, in which the suture is ammonitic, with adventitious and auxiliary elements.

As presently conceived, the Pinacocerataceae, named by Mojsisovics, 1879, combines six families; the:

• Pinacoceratidae
• Carnitidae
• Gymnitidae
  Gymnitidae
  The Gymnitidae is a family of Lower to Middle Triassic ammonoid cephalopods with evolute, discoidal shells.Hyatt and Smith included the Gymnitidae in the suborder Ceratitoidea, which later became the superfamily Ceratitaceae and included in it genera more primitive than Gymnites as well as the...
  
  
• Isculitidae
• Klamathitidae
• Sagenitidae

In the Treatise, Part L, the superfamily included only the Pinacoceratidae and Gymnitidae. Of the families more newly included in the Pinacocerataceae, the Carnitidae was removed from the Ceratitaceae

Ceratitaceae

The Ceratitaceae is a superfamily in the ammonoid cephalopod order Ceratitida characterised in general by highly ornamented or tuberculate shells with ceratitic sutures that may become goniatitic or ammonitic s some offshoots....

 and the Isculitidae from the Ptychitaceae

Ptychitaceae

The Ptychitacheae is a superfamily of typically involute, subglobular to discoidal Ceratitida in which the shell is smooth with lateral folds or strigations, inner whorls are globose, and the suture is commonly ammonitic...

. Klamathites was removed from the Carnitidae as type for the Klamathitidae. The Sagenitidae is based on the subfamily Sagenitinae of the tropitacean family Haloritidae

Haloritidae

The Haloritidae is a family of subglobular, involute, Triassic ammonoids belonging the ceratitid superfamily Tropitaceae. Their shells may be smooth or may have ribs that cross or are interrupted on the venter, and may have nodes. Keels and ventral furrows are not typical. The last volution is...

.

Fossils have been found in Triassic sediments in the United States in California, Nevada, and Alaska; in Canada in British Columbia; in Europe widespread; in China, Russia, Afghanistan, and Vietnam.

References

• Pinacocerataceae Paleobiology DB
• Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part L, Ammonoidea. R. C. Moore (ed). Geological Society of America and Univ of Kansas press, 1957