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Description: | Specimen of a fossil graptolite, Didymograptus nanus, collected from the Skiddaw Group of Middle Ordovician, Llanvirn (?) age from Souther Fell, Cumbria (NW England). Collected by John Jeffrey.
Graptolites are the fossilised skeletons of microscopic animals which lived in the sea. These graptolite fossils look a bit like tuning forks. When alive, the pointed end of the skeleton was probably attached to some sort of float. This allowed the graptolite skeleton to hang below the float and to drift near the sunlit surface of the sea where food would have been most plentiful. Graptolites are common fossils in Ordovician rocks but eventually became extinct at the end of the Carboniferous period.
The specimen was found in Cumbria.
It is from the Ordovician period (495 - 443 million years ago) | Publisher: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Subjects: | Graptolithina Jeffrey Coelenterata Classification: Amimalia Invertebrata John | Temporal: | Ordovician period (495 - 443 million years ago) | Source: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Identifier: | http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/geofinder/se... | Go to resource |
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