Eoceras and the origin of cephalopod molluscs

Cephalopods (the group of molluscs including octopus and ammonites) have a long and rather glorious history, reaching enormous size and prodigious intelligence. But how did they start? A new paper suggests that we now have some of their early ancestors pinned down to the early Cambrian: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158... (not open access) This is part of a complex story that also brings in the hyoliths, an enigmatic group of conical tube-dwelling animals from the Cambrian to the Silurian. Various other mentioned papers can be found here: Chen et al. 2025: phylogeny of molluscs: https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1... Cambrian nautiloids: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... hyoliths as molluscs: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... Cephalopod body size through time: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159... Landing et al (previous possible nautiloids) https://www.nature.com/articles/s4200... Brock & Paterson 2004 Tannuella: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat... Hyoliths as lophophorates: https://drive.google.com/file/d/194_T... Presented by Joe Botting, independent palaeontologist and Honorary Research Fellow at the National Museum Wales. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Channel Membership: to support the channel for £3.99 per month, please investigate the 'join' button underneath the video. You can expect 2-3 extra videos per month, showing current research, related mainly to the Ordovician Castle Bank Biota.