Menuites

Menuites Temporal range:
Menuites soyaensis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Cephalopoda
Subclass:	†Ammonoidea
Order:	†Ammonitida
Family:	†Pachydiscidae
Genus:	†Menuites Spath, 1922

Menuites is a genus of extinct ammonites, forming a rather small offshoot of Anapachydiscus with a fairly widespread distribution from the Upper Cretaceous Santonian and Campanian stages.

The inner whorls of this pachydiscid have fine, straight or slightly curved, radial, ribs, characteristic of Anapachydiscus. The long body, or living, chamber is with prominent rounded umbilical tubercles and ventrolateral tubercles set on irregular, wide-spaced, rounded ribs.

Distribution

Fossils of Menuites have been found in Angola, Antarctica, Australia, Austria, Chile, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Russian Federation, South Africa and the United States (Arkansas, Delaware, New Jersey, Wyoming).

Further reading

• Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part L, Ammonoidea. R.C. Moore (ed). Mesozoic Ammonoidea, p. L 180.
• The Upper Cretaceous Dimorphic Pachydiscid Ammonite Menuites in the Western Interior of the United States, William A. Cobban and W. James Kennedy, U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1533, 1993.