2.5" Cut Ammonite (Pleuroceras) Fossil Pair - Germany

Cut Ammonite (Pleuroceras) Fossil Pair - Germany #125378

This is a gorgeous pyritized/agatized ammonite (Pleuroceras spinatum) fossil collected from the Holzbachacker clay pit of Buttenheim, Bavaria/Germany. It's Jurassic, Pliensbachian stage or approximately 190 million years old. It has been cut and polished, allowing for the gorgeous mineralizations within and around the chambers of the ammonite to be seen. You can feel the heft of the iron pyrite in the specimen when you hold it in your hand.

Ammonites were predatory mollusks that resembled a squid with a shell. These cephalopods had eyes, tentacles, and spiral shells. They are more closely related to a living octopus, though the shells resemble that of a nautilus. True ammonites appeared in the fossil record about 240 million years ago. The last lineages disappeared 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous.

What an ammonite would have looked like while alive.

More about ammonites