AN AMMONITE

AN AMMONITE

Douvilleiceras

Lower Cretaceous

Troyes, France

Beautifully preserved caramel-colored specimen, presented on a stone matrix. Measurements, fossil: 3.25 x 3.5 x 1.5 in; matrix: 4.25 x 2.25 x 3 in.

In the broad sense, Ammonites, or Ammonoidea are an extinct sub-class of cephalopod molluscs. They appear in the fossil register during the Devonien and disappear just after the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, a sudden mass-extinction over 66 million years ago of some 75% of Earth's plant and animal species.