3" Iridescent Hoploscaphites Ammonite Pair - South Dakota

Iridescent Hoploscaphites Ammonite Pair - South Dakota #209700

This is a pair of Hoploscaphities ammonites collected from the Fox Hills Formation of South Dakota. These ammonites are in excellent condition, considering the difficulty (and time required) to remove them from the rock. The shells have a flashy iridescence that enhances the natural texture and coloring. The larger of the two is believed to be a female and the smaller is a male.

It comes with an acrylic display stand.

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.

These 70 million year old ammonites lived when South Dakota was a shallow inland sea. It was found preserved in a concretion that was split open. It then had to be hand prepared to remove the hard rock surrounding it from the shell, a very time consuming task.

More about ammonites