Ammonites are a group of extinct cephalopod mollusks with ribbed spiral shells. They are exceptionally diverse and well known to fossil lovers. Researchers have developed the first biomechanical model ...

Robotic ammonites, evaluated in a university pool, allow researchers to explore questions about how shell shapes affected swimming ability. They found trade-offs between stability in the water and ...

Ammonites are a tale of two textures. The prehistoric cephalopods were composed of fleshy soft tissue (the living bit of the animals) and hard external shells, which, according to a paper published ...

Scientists devised a mathematic model that helps explains how Nipponites, some of the wonkiest ammonites, built their shells. By Sabrina Imbler If you’ve seen one ammonite, you may think you’ve seen ...

Using state-of-the-art imaging techniques, palaeontologists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have been examining extinct marine creatures. Quantitative analyses provide new evidence that ammonites ...

The muscles and organs of an ammonite — an extinct relative of cuttlefish and squid with coiled shells and tentacles — have been reconstructed in 3D for the first time. The achievement has allowed a ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Purdue University researchers have discovered a fossil of a giant mollusk in Antarctica that provides scientists with their first complete view of a worm-like creature that ...

For one unfortunate ammonite in the Late Jurassic, this was no dream but a harsh reality. The animal died utterly unclad, outside its whorled shell, and was buried this way. According to a study ...

For a little while, Mosasaurus maximus was my labmate. The sharp-toothed marine predator was an inoffensive neighbor, though – no doubt because only the fossilized bones, coated in beeswax to stop the ...

Named after the Egyptian ram-horned god Ammon, ammonites were prehistoric, squid-like creatures that lived inside coil-shaped shells. They became extinct, together with the dinosaurs, about 65 million ...

A shelled fossil discovered in an amateur’s collection may harbor the first direct evidence of prehistoric sharks eating ammonites some 150 million years ago. The palm-sized ammonite, an extinct ...

In a university swimming pool, scientists and their underwater cameras watch carefully as a coiled shell is released from a pair of metal tongs. The shell begins to move under its own power, giving ...