Morphology, feeding habits and phylogenetic implications of the Cretaceous coleoid Dorateuthis

The main problem in interpreting fossil coleoids and their relation to extant taxa is the extremely rare preservation of soft tissues. With few exceptions, the dataset on soft part morphology – e.g. the digestive systems – of the manifold fossil coleoid groups is still too poor to integrate such information in a consistent phylogenetic tree. One of the most promising localities to solve questions concerning the soft tissue morphology of fossil coleoids is located in Lebanon. There, the Upper Cretaceous “fish-shale” (“Fischschiefer”) yields a large number of coleoid cephalopods along with crustacean