Streptoceras
Encyclopedia
Streptoceras is a genus in the extinct oncocerid
Oncocerida
The Oncocerida comprise a diverse group of generally small nautiloid cephalopods known from the Middle Ordovician to the Mississippian ,in which the connecting rings are thin and siphuncle segments are variably expanded...

 family Acleistoceratidae that plied the shallow sea floor from the Middle Silurian
Silurian
The Silurian is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Ordovician Period, about 443.7 ± 1.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Devonian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya . As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the...

 to the Middle Devonian
Devonian
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...

. Streptoceras is characterized by a shell that is large but short in proportion (breviconic) with the ventral profile convex and dorsal profile concave in the posterior part , convex over the body (or living) chamber, then concave toward the front, like Amphycertoceras, but with a triangular shaped aperture. Streptoceras is found in the Middle Silurian of North America,in Ontario.

Oncocerids (Order Oncocerida) were Nautiloid cephalopods that lived during the early part of the Paleozoic
Paleozoic
The Paleozoic era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon, spanning from roughly...

 Era. They are closely related to the Nautilids
Nautilida
The Nautilida constitute a large and diverse order of generally coiled nautiloid cephalopods that began in the mid Paleozoic and continues to the present with a single family, the Nautilidae which includes two genera, Nautilus and Allonautilus, with six species...

 that include the living Nautilus
Nautilus
Nautilus is the common name of marine creatures of cephalopod family Nautilidae, the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina. It comprises six living species in two genera, the type of which is the genus Nautilus...

, but on a different evolutionary branch.
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