Nautiloids are a large and diverse group of marine
cephalopods (
Mollusca) belonging to the subclass
Nautiloidea that began in the
Late Cambrian and are represented today by the living
Nautilus and
Allonautilus. Nautiloids flourished during the early
Paleozoic era, where they constituted the main predatory animals, and developed an extraordinary diversity of shell shapes and forms. Some 2,500 species of
fossil nautiloids are known, but only a handful of species survive to the present day.