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Description: | Specimen of a fossil nautiloid, Orthoceras filosum, collected from the Lower Bringewood Formation of Early Silurian, Ludlow, Gorstian age from Mocktree Quarries, Leintwardine, Herefordshire (Midland England). Collected by T.H. Pettigrew, 1960.
Imagine an octopus living in the end of an ice cream cone and you will have a good idea of what Orthoceras looked like! After death the soft flesh of the octopus would have decayed away and been eaten by scavengers on the seabed. This would have left the calcium carbonate 'ice cream cone' shaped shell to become buried in mud. When this turned to mudstone the enclosed shell was fossilised. The overall shape of the shell is conical but it is also slightly curved. It is thought that Orthoceras was a predator. Some shells have been discovered over 3 metres in length.
The specimen was found in Midland England.
It is from the Silurian period (443 - 418 million years ago) | Publisher: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Subjects: | Pettigrew Cephalopoda T.H. Classification: Animalia Invertebrata Nautiloidea 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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