Belemnoidea
| Belemnoids Temporal range:
| |
|---|---|
| Well preserved diplobelid Clarkeiteuthis conocauda, showing arm hooks and outline of mantle | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Cephalopoda |
| Subclass: | Coleoidea |
| Superorder: | †Belemnoidea |
| Orders | |
| |
Belemnoids are an extinct group of marine cephalopod, very similar in many ways to the modern squid. Like them, the belemnoids possessed an ink sac, but, unlike the squid, they possessed ten arms of roughly equal length, and no tentacles. The name "belemnoid" comes from the Ancient Greek wordd βέλεμνον (bélemnon), meaning "dart, arrow", and είδος (eídos), meaning "form".
Belemnoids include belemnites (which belong to the order Belemnitida), aulacocerids (order Aulacocerida), phragmoteuthids (order Phragmoteuthida), and diplobelids (order Diplobelida). Belemnoidea has been suggested to be paraphyletic by some authors.