Inoceramus (Greek: translation "fibrous shell" for the fibrous structure of the mineral crystals in the shell) is an extinct genus of fossil marine that superficially resembled the related winged pearly oysters of the Extant taxon genus Pteria. They lived from the Early Jurassic to latest Cretaceous. Inoceramus at Fossilworks.orgWard et al., "Ammonite and inoceramid bivalve extinction patterns in Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary sections of the Biscay region (southwestern France, northern Spain)", Geology, 1991
The English naturalist James Sowerby proposed the name Inoceramus at a meeting of the Linnean Society in London in 1814 but a text version was not published until 1822. He gave the etymology from Greek with Latin translation as: ἴς fibra fiber et κέραμος testa shell. The fibrous-appearing mineral structure of the shell inspired the name choice: "It consists entirely of a substance composed of parallel perpendicular fibres, and much more conspicuously so than Pinna or any other genus"."Inoceramids" Oceans of Kansas website: http://oceansofkansas.com/Inoceramids.html
In 1952, the huge specimen of Inoceramus steenstrupi 187 cm long, was found in Qilakitsoq, the Nuussuaq Peninsula, Greenland. This fossil is 83 Ma old, the Upper Santonian or Lower Campanian stage. Paleontologists suggest that the giant size of some species was an adaptation for life in the murky bottom waters, with a correspondingly large gill area that would have allowed the animal to survive in oxygen-deficient waters.
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