Article: The type material of the Jurassic cephalopod Belemnotheutis

The coleoid genus Belemnotheutis Pearce, 1842, from the Lower Oxford Clay (Jurassic; Callovian) of Christian Malford, Wiltshire, England, gave rise to controversy and bad feeling between Richard Owen and Joseph Pearce, Gideon Mantell and others. Owen erroneously combined Belemnothceutis with an ordinary belemnite rostrum in his reconstructions of the belemnite animal. The type material of the type species, B.antiquus Pearce. is catalogued and described in detail for the first time. The species possessed a phragmocone with about 50 chambers, a muscular mantle, an ink sac, and ten arms furnished with pairs of hooks and also bearing suckers. Specimens range from about 100 mm to 300 mm in total length.