AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Ammonite drawing5/2/2023 ![]() ![]() We found evidence for muscles that are not present in Nautilus, which provided important new insights into the anatomy and functional morphology of ammonites.”Īmmonites, which became extinct around 66 million years ago, once thrived in the oceans while dinosaurs ruled the Earth. The study’s lead author Dr Lesley Cherns, from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said: “Preservation of soft parts is exceptionally rare in ammonites, even in comparison to fossils of closely related animals like squid. However, the new study highlights that ammonites and Nautilus may not be as similar as previously thought. In both groups, a buoyant coiled shell houses the soft body. Up until now, because ammonite soft tissues are so rarely preserved, scientists have used the modern cephalopod Nautilus, which still swims in our oceans, as a body-plan for reconstructing ammonite biology. Publishing their findings today in Geology, the team say the findings add more insight and evidence that ammonites might be evolutionarily closer to coleoids, the sub-group of animals containing squid, octopuses and cuttlefish, than previously thought. Paired muscles from the ammonite body enabled the ammonite to retract itself deep into its shell for protection, the images also revealed This would have been important since ammonites lacked defensive features such as the ink sac found in modern squid and cuttlefish, and the plate-like hood of Nautilus. The arrangement and relative strength of muscles reveal that ammonites swam by jet propulsion using the hyponome – a muscular tube-like funnel through which water is expelled – as found today in other cephalopods like modern squid and octopuses. ![]() ![]() The new images have allowed the team to analyse the muscles and organs of an ammonite for the very first time, throwing new light on how the cephalopod mollusc was able to swim through the oceans and defend itself from predators. A research team led by scientists from Cardiff University has provided the first ever 3D visualisation of an ammonite – a marine mollusc group that became extinct with the dinosaurs around 66 million years ago. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |