page_title: Baculites
section_title: Species distribution
hierarchical_section_title: Baculites / Species distribution
caption_attribution_description: English: Baculites ammonite from the Late Cretaceous of Wyoming. The original aragonite of the outer conch and inner septa has dissolved away, leaving this articulated internal mold.
context_page_description: Baculites is an extinct genus of cephalopods with a nearly straight shell, included in the heteromorph ammonites. The genus, which lived worldwide throughout most of the Late Cretaceous, was named by Lamarck in 1799.
  The adult shell of Baculites is generally straight and may be either smooth or with sinuous striae or ribbing that typically slant dorso-ventrally forward. The aperture likewise slopes to the front and has a sinuous margin. The venter is narrowly rounded to acute while the dorsum is more broad. The juvenile shell, found at the apex, is coiled in one or two whorls and described as minute, about 1 centimetre in diameter. Adult Baculites ranged in size from about 7 centimetres up to 2 metres in length.
  As with other ammonites, the shell consisted of a series of camerae, or chambers, that were connected to the animal by a narrow tube called a siphuncle by which gas content and thereby buoyancy could be regulated in the same manner as Nautilus does today. The chambers are separated by walls called septa. The line where each septum meets the outer shell is called the suture or suture line.
context_section_description: The type species, Baculites vertebralis is from the upper Maastrichtian, Upper Cretaceous, and is one of the last of its kind.
  The lower part of the Campanian stage (Upper Cretaceous) in the Western Interior of North America has yielded Baculites gilberti, early B. perplexus,  B. asperiformis, B. maclearni, and B. obtusus, followed temporally by late Baculites perplexus and then by Baculites scotti. The upper part of the upper Campanian has yielded, from older to younger, B. compressus, B. coneatus, B. reesidei. B. jenseni, and B. ellasi,  followed sequentially in the lower Maastrictian by Baculites baculus, B. grandis, and B. clinolobatis.
  Baculites gracilis is known from the  Cenomanian  Britton Fm., Eagle Ford group of Texas; Baculites ovatus from the eastern U.S. and Baculites pacificum from the Campanian of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
  Species known from Europe, in addition to Baculites vertebralis include Baculites undulatus from the upper Touronian, Baculites leopoliensis from the Upper Campanian and Baculites anceps from the Upper Maastrictian.
caption: Baculites from the Late Cretaceous of Wyoming. The original aragonite of the outer conch and inner septa has dissolved away, leaving this articulated internal mold.
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