Macroscaphites


Macroscaphites is an extinct cephalopod genus included in the Ammonoidea that lived during the Barremian and Aptian stages of the Early Cretaceous. Its fossils have been found throughout most of Europe and North Africa.
Macroscaphites is known to have reached a length of about. The shell is in two basic parts, an early planispirally coiled evolute section followed by a more or less straight section that turns back on itself in a hook.
On the basis of studies conducted on the shape of the shell paleontologists have concluded that this animal lived with the aperture directed toward the surface of the water; the coiled portion upward and the U-shaped-hook directed towards the ocean floor.

List of species

Macroscaphites juani ; CubaMacroscaphites soaresi ; MozambiqueMacroscaphites striasulcatus Macroscaphites tirolensis ; South Tyrol, Italy

Fossil locations

Fossils of Macroscaphites have been found in:
;Eurasia
;Laurentia
;Africa
;South America