Orthoceratidae, from Ancient Greek ὀρθός (orthós), meaning "straight", and κέρας (kéras), meaning "horn", is an extinct family of actively mobile carnivorous cephalopods, subclass Nautiloidea, that lived in what would be North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia from the Ordovician through Triassic from 490—203.7 mya, existing for approximately .
Taxonomy
Orthoceratidae was named by McCoy (1844) and assigned to the Orthocerida by Teichert and Miller (1939) (as Orthocerotidae), to the Michelinoceratida by Flower (1962), and to the Orthocerataceae by Sweet (1964). and by Kröger et al. (2007). Flower showed in 1962