Cambrian cephalopods

Since the 1970s large Late Cambrian (Franconian to Trempealeauan) cephalopod faunas of great taxonomic diversity have been discovered in many localities in northeast, north, east, and southwest China. So far, some 130 species, assigned to 36 genera, in eight families and four orders, have been described, which is more than 90% of all known Cambrian cephalopod species. After modest beginnings in the late Franconian, cephalopods radiated into all available ecologic niches by middle Trempealeauan time, but came to near extinction before the end of the Cambrian. Only Ectenolites and Eoclarkoceras survived into the earliest Ordovician.