Ammonite Fossil Cluster Prehistoric Iridescent Specimen Millions of Years Old Polished Stone Shell Nautical Sea Creature

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Here we have a BEAUTIFUL authentic hand cut and polished Ammonite fossil cluster which the fossilized creatures here are at … Read more Here we have a BEAUTIFUL authentic hand cut and polished Ammonite fossil cluster which the fossilized creatures here are at a minimum 66 MILLION YEARS OLD with the possibility of being up to 200-300 million years old. Fossils like this are one of my favorite forms of decortive art. These can be used in many different decortive scenarios: Modern/sexy or Classical/primitive. I for one prefer to pair these types of fossils with a midcentury modern/industrial modern decor.
This amazing piece took a skilled craftsman MANY hours to cut and polish these ancient creatures in such a way and is sure to be a highlight piece in any home.

SIZE:12X9X3

Spieces info:Ammonites are extinct shelled cephalopods. All of them had a chambered shell that they used for buoyancy,” explains Zoë Hughes, our Curator of Fossil Invertebrates.

Cephalopods – members of the Cephalopoda group – are divided into three subgroups. There’s coleoids, which includes squids, octopuses and cuttlefishes, nautiloids and ammonites.

Ammonites’ shells make the animals look most like nautiluses, but they’re actually thought to be more closely related to coleoids.

“Some of their morphology was closer to that of the coleoid group,” says Zoë. “We think it’s more likely that ammonites would have had eight arms rather than lots of tentacles like a nautilus, though the shell is more similar to that of a nautilus.”

Ammonites were born with tiny shells and, as they grew, they built new chambers onto it. They would move their entire body into a new chamber and seal off their old and now too-small living quarters with walls known as septa.

The ammonite would have lived in one chamber, but we don’t know how often they built a new one,” Zoë adds.

“Previously it’s been suggested this could have been a monthly occurrence, but there’s no evidence for that. Some studies looking at the chemical composition of the shells – a field called sclerochronology – are starting to gain some insight of how long ammonites might have lived.”

Ammonites’ growing shells typically formed into a flat spiral, known as a planispiral, although a variety of shapes did evolve over time. Shells could be a loose spiral or tightly curled with whorls touching. They could be flat or helical. Some species would begin growing their shell in a tight spiral but straighten it out through later growth phases. There were also some more unusual shapes – the species Nipponites mirabilis, which is found in Japan, is exceptionally rare and looks a bit like a knot.

The subclass Ammonoidea, a group that is often referred to as ammonites, first appeared about 450 million years ago.

Ammonoidea includes a more exclusive group called Ammonitida, also known as the true ammonites. These animals are known from the Jurassic Period, from about 200 million years ago.

Most ammonites died out at the same time as the non-avian dinosaurs, at the end of the Cretaceous Period, 66 million years ago. See less