Levisoceras
Levisoceras is a genus of early Ordovician ellesmerocerid cephalopods.

Apokryltaros · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- EllesmeroceratidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Life habit
- nektobenthic, solitaryPBDB, for Ellesmerocerida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ellesmerocerida
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Ellesmerocerida
Time the record covers
At most 18 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 488.9 Mya and 471.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
40 occurrences of Levisoceras on record, most of them in the Ordovician. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
40 occurrences- Cambrian1%
- Ordovician99%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
9 formations
- Oneota Dolomite Formation10
- Chepultepec Formation8
- Gasconade Dolomite Formation4
- Tanyard Formation · Ellenburger Group3
- Oneota Formation2
- Gasconade Formation2
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The named rock units Levisoceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Levisoceras and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Levisoceras and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
166 taxa- Gasconadia putilla5 sites
- Macluritella uniangulata5 sites
- Sinuopea5 sites
- Conocerina4 sites
- Finkelnburgia4 sites
- Ceratopea grandis3 sites
- Clarkoceras3 sites
- Ectenoceras3 sites
- Tetralobula3 sites
- Burenoceras curticei2 sites
- Burenoceras minor2 sites
- Clarkoceras luthei2 sites
- Clarkoceras newtonwinchelli2 sites
- Conocerina beani2 sites
- Conocerina brevis2 sites
- Conocerina obliqua2 sites
- Dakeoceras2 sites
- Ectenoceras compressum2 sites
- Ectenoceras longum2 sites
- Hemithecella expansa2 sites
- Hypseloconus2 sites
- Oneotoceras2 sites
- Ophileta complanata2 sites
- Ophileta supraplana2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 27 sites for Levisoceras, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
6 references- Ozarkian and Canadian cephalopods. Part II, Brevicones29
- Early Ordovician nautiloids from Virginia5
- The Nautiloid Order Ellesmeroceratida (Cephalopoda)2
- Geology of the Appalachian Valley in Virginia. Part I – Geological text and illustrations2
- Early Ordovician Sea in Central Texas1
- The oldest known tentaculitid: from the Chepultepec Limestone (Canadian) of Virginia1
Each of the 40 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Levisoceras
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Apokryltaros
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Levisoceras was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Levisoceras”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itEllesmeroceratidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Foerste 1925