Pohlsepia | |
---|---|
A photograph and drawing holotype of Pohlsepia mazonensis | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Mollusca |
Class: | Cephalopoda |
Order: | Octopoda |
Genus: | †Pohlsepia Kluessendorf & Doyle, 2000 |
Species: | †P. mazonensis |
Binomial name | |
†Pohlsepia mazonensis Kluessendorf & Doyle, 2000 |
Pohlsepia is the earliest described octopod, dated at approximately 296 [verification needed] million years old. The species is known from a single exceptionally preserved fossil discovered in the Pennsylvanian Francis Creek Shale of the Carbondale Formation, north-east Illinois, United States.
Pohlsepia mazonensis is named after its discoverer, James Pohl, and the type locality, Mazon Creek. Its habitat was the shallows seawards of a major river delta in what at that time was an inland ocean between the Midwest and the Appalachians.
The type specimen is reposited at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.