Imagine holding in your hand a 110 million year old fossil.  Some ammonites are much older than that, up to 450 million years old.  Even older than the dinosaurs.  Oceans at the time were teeming with life.  Predators were everywhere.  And it was a live fast, or die hard world for the ammonites.  In fact, ammonites closely resemble modern squids, octopus and the chambered nautilus.  Ammonites were carnivores as well. 

Fossils were once found only in museums - NOW you can OWN one!!!  You can hold in your hand a part of the ancient fossil record from the time the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

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Description:  Ammonite WHOLE Polished
Cleoniceras - These most colorful ammonites come from Madagascar, off the coast of Africa.  Cleoniceras is the most common type in Madagascar.  99% of the ammonites found in Madagascar are this species, with a smooth shell and angled segments.  The animal actually lived in the very last segments.  Variations in price are due to color differences and how many crystal cavities (or open 'cave like' structures) in the segments.  On average 110 million years old.

Weight (gm):  170 grams

Size (inches):   3.5" x  2.8"

Size (mm):  90mm x  70mm

Mine location: Tulear, Madagascar

Item Number:  2366   

Retail value: $425

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Facts about ammonites -

Closest living relative - Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and it's closest cousin the Nautilus.     

First appeared - in shallow seas 450 million year ago.            

Extinct - in a catoclysmic event in the Cretaceous, with the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago.

Began life - less than 1 mm in diameter.  About the size of a period in this sentence.  But they grew fast.                                                                                                                                  

Females - reported to grow 400% bigger than males.            

Shells - comprised of chambers growing as the ammonite did.  Making 13 new chambers each year.  The ammonite lived in the last section, called the living segment.

Medieval Europe - Ammonites were thought to be petrified snakes.  They were called "snakestones" or "serpent stones".  Ammonites were said to be evidence for the actions of St. Hilda and St. Patrick - who drove the snakes out of Ireland.  In ancient times, traders would carve the face of a snake into the wide end of the ammonite fossil and sell them to the public.

The name Ammonite - comes from their spiral shape.  The fossilized shells somewhat resembled tightly coiled rams' horns.  Pliny the Elder (79 A.D. near Pompeii) called these fossils - ammonis cornua ("horns of Ammon") .  Because the Egyptian god Amman was typically depicted wearing ram's horns.

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