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Description: | Specimen of a fossil cephalopod, Orthoceras bullatus, collected from unspecified rocks of Silurian (?) age.
An animal distantly related to the modern squid and Nautilus once lived in this shell. The complete shell would have been cone-shaped and divided up into a series of hollow air chambers. Some of these chambers are clearly visible on the fossil as a series of straight lines. In life, the air chambers would have enabled the animal to float in mid-water and hunt for food. After death, the shell sank to the seabed, the animal rotted away, and the air chambers filled with mud which later hardened into rock.
It is from the Silurian period (443 - 418 million years ago) | Publisher: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Subjects: | Cephalopoda Classification: Animalia Invertebrata Mollusca | Temporal: | Silurian period (443 - 418 million years ago) | Source: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Identifier: | http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/geofinder/se... | Go to resource |
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