Help identifying fossil

[Jhawkey72]

Lake Ontario find.

 

 

 

[C2fossils]

looks like a crinoid stem impression.

[ted coulianos]

Not seeing coral or crinoid; looks like the tapered segment of a straight-shelled cephalopod or "orthoceras sp."

[Fossildude19]

Orthocone cephalopod imprint.  Orthoceras is a european genus.

This is more likely to be something akin to Michelinoceras sp.

[Quarryman Dave]

Definitely an orthocone cephalopod.  An ordovician fossil that's common in the Lindsay and Whitby formations in the lake Ontario region 

Edited September 5 by Quarryman Dave

[Philip Rutter 2]

Fossildude19, and Quarryman Dave - what happened to the term "nautiloid?"  You're totally correct with "orthocone cephalopod" of course - but I was entirely happy with nautiloids; fully understanding there are multiple sub types.  These, particularly the orthocones , are among the most common of my finds; I have only a few candidates for coiled nautiloids.  Over my career a vast number of my learned Latin names have been declared obsolete - I'm not at all sure the incessant updating of names is actually useful.   I confess to being a little resentful that the entire mammalian Order I worked on in grad school - was abolished.  The little creatures remain unaffected, but it's a little harder for a new student to navigate the existing knowledge.

 

Part of our preferences for nomenclature always reside in what we learned first - that would be nautiloid for me.   

 

Seriously, I'd like to hear your personal history with these terms- and your advice on whether I need to change.  Again.  :-)

Edited September 5 by Philip Rutter 2

[DPS Ammonite]

An orthoconic nautiloid is a good term to use since nautiloids come in many different shapes.

 

Edited September 5 by DPS Ammonite

[Fossildude19]

1 hour ago, Philip Rutter 2 said:

Seriously, I'd like to hear your personal history with these terms- and your advice on whether I need to change.  Again.  :-)

 

 

I struggle with this, as some people do get stuck on word choice. 

I have used Orthocone nautiloid/Orthocone cephalopod interchangeably, in the past, ... but have been chastened by people for either choice. 

 

I avoid nautiloid, at times, as (I guess, to some)  it tends to imply a more ammonoid/circular form.

I used to always use Orthocone nautiloid, but got lambasted a few times (on other sites) for this choice of wording.

 

So now I default to Orthocone cephalopod.  It conveys what I wish to say, and can inform people (who may or may not know the lingo) that it was a tentacled, shelled creature.

I think either/or is fine, but I am not much of a linguist. 

 

More of a lumper than a splitter, if you will. 

 

 

 

 

[Rockwood]

The challenge is to identify it in a way that the general public can appreciate. One never knows just how much information is called for.

[Ludwigia]

At least you can't go wrong with the order Orthocerida I believe.

[Philip Rutter 2]

Thank you!  All.  I have training in both taxonomy and linguistics - which of course leaves one with a set of unstated assumptions and biases; invisible until you hit a hard contradiction.  As Mark Twain (actually!) said: "I was educated once.  It took me years to get over it."  Einstein (actually) said something quite similar.   Truth - but they both struggled on.

 

I'm probably more of a splitter than a lumper at this point, having dealt with multiple cases where lumped species and phenomena were only very superficially similar- and all would have benefited from separation.  The inverse of which, of course, also occurs.

 

I guess I still like nautiloid, with no automatic modifiers - because many folk have some familiarity with the nautilus - and the -oid notifies them immediately that this critter is similar- but different.  Any quick authority a neophyte consults will include the information that nautiloids are older and the lump includes both straight and coiled types.  Good enough for me.

 

My guiding light (dim) is a T-shirt, one of my favorites:  "Eschew Obfuscation."   Precisely!  But... how ?    :-)

[Kane]

The one constant is change, as they say.  Of course, both taxonomy and linguistics comes with its own sort of nomenclatural archaeology (and, which is why it is always a delight to read etymological work to see the familial root and many permutations of any word). It wasn't all that long ago when Linnaeus was tossing whatever he couldn't figure out into the "Vermes" bucket.  

 

Higher order classification does not get reorganized or renamed as often as lower order classification at the genus and species level, but when it does it can feel seismic and uncomfortable for those more accustomed to the older way of naming things. Even classification systems were a relatively new development as an outgrowth of that shift to natural sciences during the Renaissance and later the Enlightenment (one of my favourite chapters in Foucault's Les mots et les choses is on classification regimes as a product of its "episteme").

[Bullsnake]

2 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

 

 

 

More of a lumper than a splitter, if you will. 

 

 

 

 

That's not what your signature says!

[Quarryman Dave]

4 hours ago, Philip Rutter 2 said:

Fossildude19, and Quarryman Dave - what happened to the term "nautiloid?"  You're totally correct with "orthocone cephalopod" of course - but I was entirely happy with nautiloids; fully understanding there are multiple sub types.  These, particularly the orthocones , are among the most common of my finds; I have only a few candidates for coiled nautiloids.  Over my career a vast number of my learned Latin names have been declared obsolete - I'm not at all sure the incessant updating of names is actually useful.   I confess to being a little resentful that the entire mammalian Order I worked on in grad school - was abolished.  The little creatures remain unaffected, but it's a little harder for a new student to navigate the existing knowledge.

 

Part of our preferences for nomenclature always reside in what we learned first - that would be nautiloid for me.   

 

Seriously, I'd like to hear your personal history with these terms- and your advice on whether I need to change.  Again.  :-)

Hi, An orthocone, loosely, may be thought of as a nautiloid shell, albeit somewhat larger and with a cone-shaped, straight formation as opposed to the nautiloid's coiled, curled shape.