This is one of the top predators in the Ordovician. It had a huge shell and could get up to 36 ft. (12 yd.). It ate the trilobites, sea scorpions, fish, and other prey back then. At the front was all the tentacles, the beak, the eye, and other parts of the head of squids/octopuses.
Description[]
Size[]
The partial shell of one giant Cameroceras yielded a total length estimated at the time at nearly 30 feet (9 m). This estimate has since been revised downward quite a bit;[2] Frey (1995) gives a length of up to 6 m.[3] Regardless of this estimate's degree of accuracy, this gargantuan cephalopod is thought to be among the largest known Paleozoic mollusks.
Taxonomic usage[]
"Cameroceras" has become a "wastebasket taxon" in which large orthoconic endocerids such as Endoceras, Vaginoceras, and Meniscoceras have been inserted. This makes it extremely difficult to describe Cameroceras as a distinct genus. Although the type of species Cameroceras trentonense was first described by Conrad in 1842. Since then, the generic term has had variable meaning.
Hall, who named and described Endoceras in 1847, recognized C. trentonense specifically, but used Endoceras for other specimens of large endocerids from the Trenton Limestone of western New York state. "Cameroceras" and "Endoceras" have even applied to different stages of the same species. Although Cameroceras takes precedence where the two refer to the same species, its vague application leaves Endoceras or other better-described genus the term of choice.