Ammonoid and coleoid jaws from the Upper Cretaceous of northern Siberia (Nizhnyaya Agapa River sections)

Abstract

The jaws of cephalopods, ammonites and especially coleoids, are rarely met in fossil state. The localities with diversified jaws, belonging to various groups of fossil cephalopods are even less common. We describe a diversified complex of cephalopod jaws from the upper Cenomanian–middle Turonian of Northern Siberia, which include the upper and lower jaws of Placenticeras ammonites (the oldest placenticeratid jaws known to date) and large-sized jaws of octobrachian coleoids. Although the lower jaws of Placenticeras belong to the aptychus type of ammonoid jaw apparatuses, they are characterized by the thickening of an inner organic layer in their anterior part, with a shape resembling a calcified conchorhynch known in the anterior portion of the lower jaws of Mesozoic nautilids and lytoceratid and phylloceratid ammonoids. The presence a conchorhynch-like structure supports the assumption that the feeding function in placenticeratid lower jaws most likely prevailed over the protective one. The upper jaws of Placenticeras show structure, typical for the jaws of aptychophoran ammonites: an inner lamella, divided into two wings, and a pointed outer lamella. Large-sized upper jaws of octobrachian coleoids demonstrate close affinities with the jaws of Octopoda suggesting that they could have belonged to representatives of this order, probably to large-sized gladius-bearing teudopseins. Judging by the jaws' size, both ammonites and octobrachians, which inhabited the marine basin in the Northern Siberia, were characterized by large body size. The cephalopod assemblage remained unchanged throughout the end of the Cenomanian and the first half of the Turonian.