Dimorphoceratidae [SEP] parent taxon
Dimorphoceratidae
Dimorphoceratidae is one of two families included in the Dimorphoceratoidea, a superfamily of ammonoid cephalopods belonging to the Goniatitida that lived during the Late Paleozoic. They are dimorphocerataceans in which the external lateral lobes and prongs of the ventral lobe are bifid. The shells are strongly involute, subdiscoidal to lenticular.
References.
- Miller, A.K. et al. Paleozoic Ammonoidea. Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas Press.
- Dimorphoceratidae in GONIAT Online 5/30/12
- The Paleobiology Database 10/01/07
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of