Veneficoceras
Encyclopedia
Veneficoceras is a member of the rod-bearing Baltoceratidae, an extinct cephalopod family with characteristics of the orthoceratoid Dissidocerida, found in Cassinian
age, Lower Ordovician, limestone in western Utah
.
Veneficoceras has a large tubular siphuncle with thin connecting rings that lies along the interior ventral margin. The endosiphuncular rod appears in vertical section to bifurcate into a larger ventral rod on the bottom and a smaller and shorter dorsal rod on top. In cross section a complete lining all around would probably appear, with a dorsally offset central opening.
Veneficoceras is represented only by the type species, Venificoceras susanae of which there is only the holotype, a 40 millimetres (1.6 in) long portion of a phragmocone that came from a little over 15 metres (49.2 ft) above the base of the Wahwah limestone in the Ibex area, western Utah.
Veneficaceras is named for the witch in the Tajar stories by Jane Shaw Ward. Other genera whose names are based on the same stories are Tajaroceras
. Rangeroceras
, and Wardoceras
Cassinian
The Cassinian is the latest age of the Canadian Epoch when thought of temporally and the uppermost stage of the Canadian Series when thought of stratigraphically...
age, Lower Ordovician, limestone in western Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
.
Veneficoceras has a large tubular siphuncle with thin connecting rings that lies along the interior ventral margin. The endosiphuncular rod appears in vertical section to bifurcate into a larger ventral rod on the bottom and a smaller and shorter dorsal rod on top. In cross section a complete lining all around would probably appear, with a dorsally offset central opening.
Veneficoceras is represented only by the type species, Venificoceras susanae of which there is only the holotype, a 40 millimetres (1.6 in) long portion of a phragmocone that came from a little over 15 metres (49.2 ft) above the base of the Wahwah limestone in the Ibex area, western Utah.
Veneficaceras is named for the witch in the Tajar stories by Jane Shaw Ward. Other genera whose names are based on the same stories are Tajaroceras
Tajaroceras
Tejaroceras is an extinct slender cephalopod from the uppermost Lower Ordovician of western North America, belonging to the Orthocerid family Troedssonellidae....
. Rangeroceras
Rangeroceras
Rangeroceras is an extinct nautiloid cephalopod genus that lived in what is now western North America during the latter part of the Early Ordovician....
, and Wardoceras
Wardoceras
Wardoceras is an extinct nautiloid genus from the late Early Ordovician of Western Utah, assigned to the orthocerid family, Michelinoceratidae...
Reference
- Stephen C. Hook and Rousseau H. Flower 1977. Late Canadian (Zones J,K) Cephalopod Faunas from Southwestern United States. Memoir 32, New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources.