Epizoic bryozoans on cephalopods through the Phanerozoic: A review

Epizoic bryozoans on cephalopods through the Phanerozoic: a review -Cephalopods have a long geological record nd have been utilised by many encrusting organisms as suitable substrates on which to settle and grow. Living cephalopods, dead floating shells, and those lying on the seabed have been encrusted by bryozoans since the Ordovician; these records are reviewed here. Encrustation by bryozoans declined through the Palaeozoic and into the Mesozoic, and few examples of encrustation of modern nautiloids and coleoids have been reported. The patterns of encrustation provides valuable information, firstly, on the palaeobiology of the hosts and the epizoan: some are obligate, but many appear accidental, and secondly, on the sedimentological conditions at the time of fouling of dead shells. Bryozoan-cephalopod interactions may additionally provide valuable data on present and past drifting patterns of shells, and on the palaeo- and biogeographic influences on bryozoan settlement on cephalopods.