17" Silver Iridescent Ammonite (Cleoniceras) Fossil - Madagascar

This is a huge, 17" wide, silver iridescent ammonite fossil quarried near Mahajanga Province, Madagascar. It is the genus Cleoniceras which inhabited the shallow seas approximately 110 million years ago. It is an extremely large specimen, with a lot of purple iridescence to it's shell when viewed from the right angles. There is still some areas of hard matrix attached to the shell.

Ammonites were predatory mollusks that resembled squids with shells. These cephalopods had eyes, tentacles, and spiral shells. Though their shells resemble that of a nautilus, they are actually more closely related to living octopuses. Ammonites appeared in the fossil record about 240 million years ago, barely surviving several major extinction events. The last lineages disappeared 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous.

Artist's reconstruction of an ammonite,  by Nobu Tamura
Artist's reconstruction of an ammonite, by Nobu Tamura

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DETAILS
SPECIES
Cleoniceras sp.
LOCATION
Ambatolafia, Mahajanga Province, Madagascar
SIZE
17" wide
ITEM
#240198
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