4.4" Fossil Ammonite (Orthosphinctes) - Germany

Fossil Ammonite (Orthosphinctes) - Germany #119366

This is a 4.4" fossil ammonite (Orthosphinctes) from Germany. It has bee well prepared and a portion of the rock in which it was fossilized remains attached to form a stand. There are two other ammonites visible in this specimen.

Ammonites were predatory cephalopod mollusks that resembled squids with spiral shells. They are more closely related to living octopuses, though their shells resemble that of nautilus species. True ammonites appeared in the fossil record about 240 million years ago during the Triassic Period. 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