Article: Origin and evolution of the Cretaceous micromorph ammonite family Flickiidae

The ammonite family Flickiidae is a mid-Cretaceous (Albian-Cenomanian) dwarf (3 cm or less diameter) group of three genera, Flickia Pervinquiere, 1907, Ficheuria Pervinquiere, 1910, and Adkinsia Bose, 1928 to which Salaziceras Breistroffer, 1936 is here added, characterized by the evolution of an archetypal simplified suture and shell form closely homoeomorphic of the ancestral Devonian Anarcestina. Previously regarded as cryptogenic, the family is shown to be an offshoot of Neophlycticeras of the Stoliczkaiinae with simplifying suture. F. kiliani (Pervinquiere) is a paedomorphic derivative of S. salazacense (Hebert and Munier-Chalmas) characterized by small size, globose simple shell and only slightly incised sutures. It gave rise to forms with progressively fewer incisions in lobes and saddles, and eventually to some with entire sutural elements. From these arose the sparsely ribbed and bullate endemic North American Adkinsia and the more widely occurring compressed, evolute, smooth to ribbed Flickia.