Their coiled, chambered shells bore the story of their life history ammonites were born with tiny shells and new chambers in the shells would grow as they grew. In the past, the tightly wound ammonite fossils were thought to be the coiled-up bodies of dead snakes that had petrified. Ammonites are a common fossil, belonging to a type of shelled cephalopod that died out around 66 million years ago. Mosasaurs were fearsome, giant marine reptiles with powerful jaws that lived around the same time as ammonites some of the largest specimens grew to around 15m in size. seppenradensis was floating in the late-Campanian seas of Europe and, later, the Gulf of Mexico, mosasaurs, the ocean’s top predator at the time, were also growing dramatically. In a new study in the journal PLoS One, scientists from Germany, Mexico and the UK say that while this evolutionary quirk remains as yet unsolved, the smoking gun may lie in the evolutionary trajectory of co-existent predators. The first uncovered specimen stunned the world when it was discovered at Seppenrade in 1895 there are now 10 known specimens from the same period from that part of Germany, one of which is mounted in a Seppenrade pub.īut the puzzle of this ancient marine colossus’ gigantic size relative to other known ammonites – some of which could be as small as an inch across – has long fascinated scientists. The world’s largest ammonite, Parapuzosia seppenradensis, was a whopping 1.74 metres wide when it died near modern-day Seppenrade, Germany, and was preserved for around 80 million years. ![]() Ancient fossilised brains give insight into the evolution of insects and spiders.While our ancestors went from sea to land, this 400 million-year old fishapod high-tailed it back into the water.Megalodon was Earth’s highest-level apex predator – ever. ![]() Plesiosaur fossil found in Morocco shows the marine animals also lived in freshwater.Giant predatory dinosaur fossils discovered in Egypt and Britain.
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