Bellerophontida

Classification
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Order: Bellerophontida (Ulrich & Scofield, 1897)
Cincinnatian Families: Bellerophontidae, Sinuitidae

Geologic Range
Early Cambrian – Early Triassic

Common Paleoecology
Bellerophontida is an extinct order of slow-moving low-level epifaunal detritivores.

Characteristics of the Order

  • Closely coiled and rarely slightly asymmetrical
  • Usually contain selenizone generated by median labral sinus or slit
  • Variable shell wall thickness
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Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part I, Mollusca 1 (1960):

  • Shell most commonly isostrophic, rarely slightly asymmetrical; mostly closely coiled, but in some genera cyrtiform; predominantly with median labral sinus or slit, or tremata, probably exhalant in function and usually generating a selenizone; shell wall of variable thickness, no evidence of nacre; operculum unknown; presence of paired and equal ctenidia and osphradia, also of single pair of retractor muscles, inferred (latter from muscle scars); nothing known of other soft parts.

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Bellerophontidae


Sinuitidae