Siphonal tube structure of the Late Devonian orthocerid Dolorthoceras from the Polar Urals (NW Russia) preserving nacre and organic fibres as well as its persistence in cephalopod evolution

Abstract

A juvenile orthocerid Dolorthoceras sp. from the Frasnian (Late Devonian) of the Polar Urals in NW Russia is the first recorded ectocochleate cephalopod showing fibrous structures and the first Devonian cephalopod preserving nacreous structures within its conch. Like Nautilus, Dolorthoceras sp. has columnar nacre in its shell wall and septa, which are composed of differentiated nacreous tablets that are c. 3 µm and 10 µm in diameter. The central, small, cylindrical, hollow siphonal tube—studied in median section using scanning electron microscope—comprises short columnar-nacreous suborthochoanitic septal necks and thin, apparently primarily chitinous, connecting rings; swollen, lens-shaped in median section, two-part fibrous non-biomineralized structures—here named clutches—envelope the posterior parts of the septal necks. Together with the adjacent connecting ring, the outer part of the clutch may extend onto adapical septal surfaces; their inner part and adjoining from inside next connecting ring line the septal neck. The clutches are comparable, to some degree, to the auxiliary deposits and cuffs of the siphonal tubes found in ammonoids; these are interpreted as being protective structures of the conjunctions between the connecting rings and septal necks reinforcing it against hydrostatic pressure, which was probably also the case in Dolorthoceras. Tracing the Silurian to Cretaceous longiconic cephalopods with narrow, central to eccentric, hollow siphonal tubes and swollen posterior portions of the septal necks shows that the Dolorthoceras-type siphonal tube may represent a conch structure that persisted throughout about 370 million-year-long evolutionary history of orthocerid cephalopods.