If you thought ammonites were small creatures that would fit into the palm of your hand, have a look at this monster:

Giant ammonite (http://www.ens-lyon.fr/Planet-Terre/Hebdo/Images/pages/Img01-2003.html)

This is a specimen of Parapuzosia seppenradensis, which has a diameter of 8 feet, 6 inches, weighs 3.5 tonnes and was found in rocks about 78 million years old at Seppenrade near Munster, Germany. It was discovered in 1895 by Prof Hermann Landois and is currently on display at the Munster Natural History Museum (Westfälischen Landesmuseum für Naturkunde). A cast is on display at the Museum of Natural History in LA.

This is the largest ammonite ever discovered to date. And to think Steve thought the Colossal Squid was large! Scary stuff.... :D

Ah, I love that... that's huge. Imagine that thing swimming around with its big ol' shell and all that in ancient waters. I love that! Thanks for posting.

Holy spirals Mermaid Man :spongebo: absolutely humunglebungelous !!
:meso: <--- feeble wimp ! :boohoo:

I reckon Kevin (Utah Saint) :usa: could well have been the prepmeister !

As Tony says, what a sight they must have been :shock:
Could turn the accepted view of pliosaurs dining on ammonites on it's head !
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/files/Ceph_pack_chase_dinner.jpg
I've always looked at this as plesiosaur dining on ammonites. Now I see it as huge ammonite snacking as others home in.

:shock: That is one huge :ammonite: . You'd need quite alot of stuff to get that thing floating :bugout:

Emmerson Bigguns :shock:

Flippin papadopoulos!!

:meso: <--- feeble wimp ! :boohoo:

Humbug, smoke and mirrors!! Darn thing's intestine probably passed straight through its heart!!

though I gotta admit, kinda makes messie look like an insignificant woosey. If you're reading this then your head will explode in 5 minutes

............ :shock: ............

I wonder if the thing was fully grown? The outermost chambers seem to be somewhat worn away which would make maturity a difficult thing to determine. Perhaps a fully mature specimen was even larger????

My head has not yet exploded, Steve. How are you doing?

.... and if the shell was actually internalised, it'd be bigger than the Earth, moon, Solar System and Universe combined!!!!

There's a big one on display at NZ's national museum (they refer to the place as 'Te Papa'); we get 'em big down here too, although I've never seen anything quite like this.

I'm a box of birds Phil; how're you? I'm getting geared up to go fossil hunting in a couple of weeks; looking forward to that, and to getting out of the office. Re your head - you'll probably wake up tomorrow morn without it .... time differences and all.

There's a big one on display at NZ's national museum (they refer to the place as 'Te Papa'); we get 'em big down here too, although I've never seen anything quite like this.



Here are two images of the Te Papa specimen which is incorrectly billed as the 'largest ammonite in the world', though it is still an awesome specimen. It is a 145 million year old Jurassic specimen of Lytoceras taharoaense, is 1.42m in diameter and was found near Kawhia Harbour.

The Lytoceratina were a major suborder of ammonites, and were one of the most persistant and widespread groups. They are known from the early Jurassic to the end of the Cretaceous and really changed very little throughout this immense period of time. They had circular whorl sections and were poorly streamlined so it is theorised that they were probably poor swimmers. Believed to be open water or oceanic ammonites, it is thought that may have been deeper water dwellers than most other ammonites as they tended to have closely packed septa indicating the shell may have been able to resist greater pressure. The uncoiled heteromorph ammonites are believed to have stemmed from this group in the late Jurassic.

My head was pretty much where I left it last night, Steve. Not finding a blood-soaked stump on my shoulders this morning came as quite a relief. Good luck with your fossil hunt!

I just read the fine print, about five minutes ago
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3007

Phil, looks like we need an industrial supply of Plaster of Paris, tissue paper and bandages to piece poor Kevin back together.

That'll learn you Kevin; never read the small print!

But the Kiboko and all his men CAN put Kevin back together again....

:P

I thought he was growing his whiskers & showing off the Utah tiger gene.
grrrrrrrr Kevin !
oh & for a truly phenomenal Kimmeridgian erratic from the Boulder clay of sunny Suffolk - watch this space !! :shock:

Phil, looks like we need an industrial supply of Plaster of Paris, tissue paper and bandages to piece poor Kevin back together.

That'll learn you Kevin; never read the small print!

Don't forget an old Pinyon branch or two for support.

I've learned my lesson: always read the fine print before you read the small print!

Spartacus, will you need the Kiboko to help carry it? He worked wonders putting me together again! :wink:

all offers of assistance are always gratefully received Kevin, but in this instance, not entirely necessary unless someone has a spare electron scanning microscope for a little prepping ! :oops:

... that's more akin to Titanominutus, Spartacus B!

Am off diving this weekend with Kat, first time in ~ 10 years I've got wet (terribly long, sad story) .... all rather exciting; wonder if we'll find a live ammonite ....

What's the score with your Megatitanoceras imperator, Spartacus? Nicely prepped, by the way.

Ammonites in the moonlight? Good luck Steve! You will get a Nobel Prize someday....providing the cephs don't get you first.

oh how you talk in riddles leaving me feel more stupid than I already am :oops:

Uncle Steve, I'll admit it ain't the biggest but it was pitch dark, as the good lady wouldn't leave 'til she'd fragged every last lump of available boulder clay, so for an ol' timer like me it was quite a feat of human endurance akin to X-ray vision or Action Man's "Eagle eyes"

Phil, it just jumped out & went straight for the throat. All it got was a light tickle with a soft paintbrush, then I went & cleaned the ammonite ! boom boom

For your cheek, I want an ID - the curly not the fuse.

Here is the largest ammonite ever found in Canada. It measures 1.5m across:

From Past Lives: The Chronicles of Canadian Paleontology: (http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/paleochron/28_e.php)

In July 1947 geologist Chuck Newmarch and a small field crew working for the British Columbia Geological Survey were busy mapping coal seams in the shales, siltstones and sandstones exposed above Coal Creek in the Rocky Mountains just east of Fernie in the south-east corner of British Columbia. Fossils are few and far between in these rocks and it was not clear which part of these coal measures is Jurassic and which Cretaceous. So, Newmarch was astonished when [??a student reported a fossil truck tire??] , on reaching a massive sandstone bed, he literally stepped into a giant ribbed depression the size of a tractor tire. He was no paleontologist, but when he saw the coiled nature of the depression he realized that he was looking at the imprint of an ammonite, but one of truly heroic proportions. The fossil measured almost 1.5 metres across -- by far, the biggest complete ammonite ever found in Canada.

After the field season Newmarch told the Geological Survey of Canada of his discovery and, a few years later, Hans Frebold of that organization became the first of a succession of Canadian Jurassic paleontologists to hike up to the giant. Frebold later described the ammonite and gave it a name -- Titanites occidentalis but, because of its size, locality, and the nature of preservation, he was unable to follow through with one of the requirements when any new species is named -- that is, the type specimen, or holotype, must be deposited in a museum. The specimen could not be removed from the sandstone creek bottom, but over the years, different latex molds have been made -- each mold made of this ammonite requires about 20 liters of liquid latex.

The generic name Titanites was coined by the English paleontologist S.S. Buckman for large ammonites found in Jurassic rocks of Dorset. In the nineteenth century these ammonites were so common in the vicinity of Portland that they were used to edge garden beds. The "Portland giants", however, have diameters less than half that of the Fernie behemoth. Because he thought they must belong to the same group, Frebold concluded that the English and Canadian ammonites were the same age, that is latest Jurassic -- a time interval with few diagnostic ammonites in western Canada.

The name might fit, but the identification of the Fernie giant as Titanites is probably wrong. Although it is poorly preserved, fine ribbing can be seen on the first-formed coils, but this is abruptly replaced by coarse ribbing on the last coil. Such difference in ribbing is unknown in Titanites from Dorset. Titanites has been denigrated as a "garbage can genus" of vaguely similar ammonites that have little in common, aside from their size. Canadian paleontologists, however, continue to use the name Titanites (sprinkled liberally with quotation or question marks) for the Fernie giant simply because there is, at present, no alternative.

:shock: Phil, did he get it home ?
dimension wise it looks bit like latest discovery (by Mrs.B) which in my relative ignorance is penned in as a Cadoceras unless of course I've messed up, shame we've only just discovered Pakefield :(
Will post same & Cardioceras chalcedonicum & other soon as technology is readily available ! 8)

Could I keep an ammonite that size in my 65gal tank?

:P
I used to live in a house with an ammonite about 18 inches diamater built into the wall above my front door! That was impressive

Andy, I think I know it !
what was the address again ?

Andy. if you could keep an ammonite like that in a 65g tank I'd be a monkey's Australopithecus. Love to see you have a damn good try at it though! Please just post the first images here, mind.

Spartacus - have a crack at this website : Cardioceras (http://www.daimonax.com/ammonites/p2cardio4.html). As you are shortly emigrating to France I expect a full 100% accurate translation. Anything less and it's the Spanish Inquisition for you.

Yo Phil, bonjour ! :P
cheers for that :thumbsup: , I hunted high & low for anything resembling my two (1.5 really after glacier shaved half off 1 of them) & came up with a preliminary Cardioceras chalcedonicum fromhttp://www.durain.demon.co.uk-type-ftlist.htm as it was the only remotely similar specimen for the relevant horizion I could find anywhere. Now up pops Cardioceras excavatum also looking the part except for location !
Your search engine is obviously a classified design.
It's always baffled me why fossil nuts end up spending more time noses in books that out there tapping but I'm starting to see why as it's quite a challenge tracking down a mystery find.

It's back to school for me as I've some catching up to do so this month's bedtime read is Ewan McGregor's "Invertebrate Palaeontology & Evolution"
it has lots of pictures which is handy ! & finally got to obtaining Dr. Monks classic read along with everything Mr. Fortey has penned all courtesy of Mrs. B :heart:
I'm soon going to need a hat as big as :spongebo: whoops not Bob, meant :oshea:

Will a Babelfish do ? my French course is the one by Bill Wyman & I've just sussed "Je suis un rockstar !" so I'm a bit behind so please spare me the rouge chaud poker & salsa dip a bit longer !

HOLY CRAP DUDE THAT THHING IS HUGE!

Yes I know, Octomush. That beast is a stunner.

Modern cephalopods are utterly fascinating but fossils like this really demonstrate how fantastically diverse, amazing and fascinating the group once was.

Looking at this brown gritty slab of rock it's fun to try to imagine a living ammonite of this size drifting in the ocean currents stretching out its tentacles for prey as marine reptiles pass by... Maybe the shell was encrusted with barnacles, or maybe it was highly ornamented with dazzling patterns..one can only imagine the possibilities.

Maybe it wasn't even fully grown? And maybe they gathered in shoals like belemnites?

Coool... I shudder to think what it could do to a human... And do u think it was as smart as an octo?

And do u think it was as smart as an octo?

Hmmm...that is a fascinating question and, unfortunately, impossible to answer.

The trouble is we don't know very much about the soft bodied form of the ammonite as no convincing soft bodied fossils have ever been found. We don't know if the thing had eight arms like an octopus, ten (8+2) like a squid or ninety like Nautilus. Therefore it is difficult to determine its lifestyle, and by inference, how 'intelligent' the animal may have been.

Certainly ammonites bore a close resemblance to the modern Nautilus and one may imagine they had a similar lifestyle; sluggish and unreactive. But the teeth on the radula on some octopi resemble in number and form some ammonite groups suggesting a close link.

On the other hand octopi live in a very reactive environment where they exist as active hunters using stealth and concealment, clearly responding with an 'intelligent' close interaction with the environment around them. It's hard to imagine a drifting ammonite sweeping through the ocean using its arms to feed on plankton developing an acute awareness of its surrounding as with octopi as it did not need to. The again, maybe our interpretation of how ammonites lived is incorrect and they existed in many, varied lifestyles....

My gut feeling is no, they were very unreactive unintelligent animals....but we so know so little about their lifestyle that one can only guess!

Fascinating question though, thanks!

Phil

Or could it be that they were unlike any other sort of ceph..... And when they were young they had no shell and then once they became aged and cenile they no longer used intelegence and grew a shell! HAHAHHAHA! And that was my completely random hypothesis. :P

Hmmmm......an 'interesting' theory, octomush. I'm going to have agree with its randomness, I'm afraid.

Juvenile ammonite hatchlings, known as 'ammonitellas' developed their initial shell, a.k.a 'protoconch' whilst still inside the egg. It is thought ammonites produced many small eggs unlike the modern Nautilus, which produces fewer larger ones.

Phil

Yes Im afraid I have masters degree in stupidity! :mrgreen: Thats cool though, the growing of the shells in the eggs and stuff. And it makes u wonder..... If those things ate those dinosaurs a long time ago. Then how come their close reletives the nautilous doesnt feed on those swimming iguanas from the gallapogos islands? Lol Yes its one stupid question after another.... lol

Octomush,

Unless we have missed fossils of ammonites that grew to seventy foot high, moved onto land, and developed razor sharp beaks capable of piercing tough flesh and bone, they were not capable of 'feeding on dinosaurs'.

LOL now that would be cool..... But what I meant was those swimming dinos u know the ones with the fins and stuff? :roflmao:

Octomush,

Unless we have missed fossils of ammonites that grew to seventy foot high, moved onto land, and developed razor sharp beaks capable of piercing tough flesh and bone, they were not capable of 'feeding on dinosaurs'.

We have the Pacific Tree Octopus, why not the Triassic Fern Ammonite?

:) :D :heee: :lol: :jester: :roflmao:

Triassic Fern Ammonite :)

LOL now that would be cool..... But what I meant was those swimming dinos u know the ones with the fins and stuff? :roflmao:

I'm afraid they were not dinosaurs, I'd imagine you are referring to plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs. Have a look at these two great sites for more information:

Ichthyosaur Home Page (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/people/motani/ichthyo/)

The Plesiosaur Site (http://www.plesiosaur.com/)

Oooooooooo! Right... Sorry! lol :P

Here's another image of the giant ammonite Parapusozia from Germany. Stunning.

:shock:
I want one ! no, I need one lol

Keef

I can just see that on my lounge room wall!..........sigh


J:mrgreen:

I need to construct a replica!

Thought you all might enjoy this reconstruction of the giant ammonite I found on a Japanese website:

Those are very heavy looking arms, somehow I always imagined them with finer arms!


J

me too. They kinda look like a octo doing a very poor job at hiding in a snail shell.

Well, no-one really knows what an ammonite looks like as no soft-bodied fossils have ever been found. This is in itself somewhat odd when one thinks that ammonites are found in such locations as Solnhofen in Germany where soft-bodied fossil vampyromorphs have been found displaying the soft parts. Maybe there was something unique or especially delicate about the ammonite creature itself?

Anyway, I don't see any reason why these giant ammonites could not have had thick arms like this, after all, the living chamber would be quite massive and able to support a large bulky animal. It's hard to imagine something this massive feeding on plankton, though one can imagine it hopping along the seabed hunting crustaceans. I'm sure the smaller forms were drifters feeding on plankton with thin delicate arms as you say, Jean.

There is some evidence to suggest that the ammonite may have born a much closer resemblance to the coleoids (esp the octopus) than the nautiloids based on similarities in the radula. Personally, I suspect that there there was a great variety in size and shape of the soft-bodied parts adapted to differing lifestyles, but all based on the ten-armed plan. But no-one really knows for sure........yet.

Not the biggest ammonite in the World but the biggest ammonite in my living room (and I think its a whopper!). A Coroniceras (or Paracoroniceras) from Lyme Regis in Dorset - they do get bigger than this one. The middle few whorls are restored as they rarely preserve right to the centre I'm told.

All the best

Andy

Great ammonite Neuropteris, it is at least a double quarter pounder :shock:

As for the reconstruction, just the opposite of what I imagine they would have looked like. I don't know why, but for some reason I see ammonoids more like a long slender spider web hanging from the shell. :grin:

Someone posted this link before I think, but it fits well in this thread too.

Ammonite Model (http://renmanart.com/ammonite.html)

Neuropteris, you are a lucky boy :thumbsup:
all I've got is some big sections of the same I scavenged off Monmouth beach

Keef

Hi Keef

Unfortunately I can't claim any glory in finding that one (unless finding it on the shelf in a shop counts) :smile:

Andy

Andy, sometimes ya gotta bite the bullet & fork out for that elusive specimen, I've never been to Maroc or Madagascar but I've got an Agidir monster courtesy of Mrs. B :heart: & others

Keef

Andy, that is a fantastic specimen. Looks like you've got a very interesting collection back there at home. What is the plant stem fossil behind the ammonite you have there, a horsetail perhaps?

Thanks for the link Kevin, I have not seen that before. Fantastic model, though personally I think it should have 10 arms, not 8!

Anyway, I don't see any reason why these giant ammonites could not have had thick arms like this, after all, the living chamber would be quite massive and able to support a large bulky animal. It's hard to imagine something this massive feeding on plankton, though one can imagine it hopping along the seabed hunting crustaceans. I'm sure the smaller forms were drifters feeding on plankton with thin delicate arms as you say, Jean.

Hi Phil

Baleen whales are big and feed on plankton, but they've got a sieve. Hunting plankton calls up goofy images of ammonites in deerstalker caps. Crustaceans make more sense to me, too, mmmm.

Melissa

Andy, that is a fantastic specimen. Looks like you've got a very interesting collection back there at home. What is the plant stem fossil behind the ammonite you have there, a horsetail perhaps?

Phillipo, I think you'll find that's one of Andy's slippers !

Keef

Slippers? What sort of feet do you think I have Keef???

No, I'm afraid thats Calamites corner. Apologies for the none ceph related picture (unless they prove to be the habitat of the yet to be discovered Upper Carboniferous lesser spotted tree Goniatite in which case remember you saw it here first folks! :wink: )

All the best

Andy

[QUOTE=Phil;30212]I wonder if the thing was fully grown? The outermost chambers seem to be somewhat worn away which would make maturity a difficult thing to determine. Perhaps a fully mature specimen was even larger????


The specimen is fully adult. Note that the ribs coarsen and the last section of bodychamber has developed flanges; these are all that attach the last (detached) part-whorl to the pharagmocone. The width of these flanges is not known for certain; Graeme Stevens, the paleontologist who described the species, reconstructs them as being quite wide. The fossil is a steinkern; the fact that the flange bases are preserved AND that the edges of the flange-infillings are broken-off would indicate that Stevens is correct and that the flanges must have been wide; I'd estimate that they would have extended at least 15cm from the shell surface, and may well have wrapped at least halfway around the previous whorl.

I think that the detached part of the whorl may well be a true shaft, as with scaphitids. This would make the species a true heteromorph. No other such specimens are known, but then, though other L. taharoaense have been collected, I don't think that any are over 35cm diameter ie they are all microconchs (that is, If Lytoceras has micro/macros) and/or or juveniles.

Lytoceratids tend to be serpenticones ie they have subcircular to circular whorl-sections and the whorls only just touch one another; they are as evolute as possible.

I can't understand why the Museum of NZ ("Te Papa", translated from Polynesian as "the mud", is a typically irrelevant "Maori" title, the like of which every NZ governmant department gets... and which are NOT translations of the English titles) is calling it "the largest ammonite in the world"; certainly the paleontologists involced in their fossil display know that this is an outright untruth. But the museum PR people are interested in generating public interest, not in facts.

Like the Otago Museum in Dunedin, specimens in this display are not Museum of NZ specimens, but are on loan from elsewhere, in this case the Institute of Geological & Nuclear Research (IGNS).

I have seen this specimen, and it is impressive. It's unfortunate that a bit of steinkern has been lost from the point where the detached shaft of whorl meets the rest of the shell (it's been infilled with filler).

I don't think that any ammonoids had internal shells. Certainly the changes in ribbing and the shapes of heteromprphs would reinforce this. Scaphitids have a swollen final chamber which some workers believe to be brooding-chambers (what's the bet that some forms not only hatched their eggs in there, but brooded their young).
**********
There is some evidence to suggest that the ammonite may have born a much closer resemblance to the coleoids (esp the octopus) than the nautiloids based on similarities in the radula. Personally, I suspect that there there was a great variety in size and shape of the soft-bodied parts adapted to differing lifestyles, but all based on the ten-armed plan. But no-one really knows for sure........yet.
**********
Certainly reconstructions using Nautilus as a basis are fatally flawed. The shells are superficially similar... but that of Spirula is far closer to Nautilus than are ammonoids. Ammonoids may well turn out to be coleoidlike... and advanced at that. They cannot be coleoids, as they evolved from the nautiloids long before the coleoids did ie they are separate clades. The first known ammonoid is believed to be the orthoconic form Bactrites (which would indicate that anything NOt straight should be called heteromprph!). The first accredited heteromorphs were around in the late Triassic, and were unrelated to the later ones. Some heteromorphs belonged to genera which were comprised mainly by "ordinary" species ("orthomorphs"?). Coiling iteslf is not of generic importance in gastropods, and there is no reason why it should be with ammonoids either. Ammonoid taxonomy is a nightmare of genus-group synonyms in use; the Triassic is probably the worst, with no two authorities agreeing on supraspecififc taxonomy.

Well, I'm off in to-and-a-bit weeks to collect ammonoids (and other living & fossil molluscs) on Vancouver & Strait of georgia Islands... wish me luck!!

Oh, there's that giant "Titanites" near Fernie, BC... it would benefit esthetically by removal of the bodychamber, no? Anyone interested in helping me carry this part to the car...? (I'm not entirely joking here). I haven't seen the specimen, and it's a bit out of the way of my route... but anyone know how to get to it? I wouldn't mind seeing it. It really should have a shelter built over it, or be removed and placed in some institution.

The U. C. Museum of Paleontology has a cast of Parapuzosia seppenradensis on display, but I think it is incorrectly identified as Pachydiscus. I suggested that this be changed a few years back, but it hasn't happened yet. I walk by this animal every day on my way to me office and I never quit looking at it in awe.

Roy

Thanks for that added info. vw1. :notworth:

Good luck on your trip, and while in :canada: look for this, it is up there somewhere in some Triassic rocks. :wink:

:shock:

A bit more info on the pic below from Andrew Milner, City Paleontologist and Curator, St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm (http://www.sgcity.org/dinotrax/indexmain.php)

"This ammonite is over 8 feet in diameter. It was found by my friend Jim Rockwood (that's him on the outcrop) near Williston Lake in north-central British Columbia. It's Late Triassic from the Fernie Group. Same rocks that held that world record Shonisaurus described by the late Elisabeth Nicholls. The ichthyosaur is now housed at the Tyrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller, Alberta. both Jim and I were in contact with Paul Johnson (Invert. Paleo. curator at Tyrell). Jim was to show them where it was. Don't know whatever came of that. "

[QUOTE=Phil;31386]Here is the largest ammonite ever found in Canada. It measures 1.5m across:

I found a website (can't remember the URL) in which it was claimed that the locals refused to allow specimen to be collected, and it has now been totally destroyed by erosion. Don't know if this is correct, but that IS what happens when a fossil in situ is "left there for four children to enjoy".

Thanks for that added info. vw1. :notworth:

Good luck on your trip, and while in :canada: look for this, it is up there somewhere in some Triassic rocks. :wink:



Thanks!

Hoo boy, that's a biggie. A bit big to fit into my backpack.

The largest Triassic ammonoids I knew of before were 1m in diameter; the largest Triassic beast I have actually seen was a Rhacophyllites I collected, at about 65cm (estimated, as it's incomplete).

You would need several trips with several backpacks to get that, but it sure would be nice to get an up-close view.:smile:


Here is a pic of my largest Triassic ammonoid, Churkites noblei, completely septate 30cm, so with a body chamber it would have been 45 +/-, no where near 65, and a far cry from 8 feet.

Here's another image of the giant ammonite Parapusozia from Germany. Stunning.


That's a cast. I wouldn't mind a copy myself!

[QUOTE=vw1;125568][QUOTE=Phil;30212]I wonder if the thing was fully grown? The outermost chambers seem to be somewhat worn away which would make maturity a difficult thing to determine. Perhaps a fully mature specimen was even larger????
----------------------------

The above was in reference to the giant New Zealand Lytoceras... just in case the order of the postings has caused confusion.

You would need several trips with several backpacks to get that, but it sure would be nice to get an up-close view.:smile:


Here is a pic of my largest Triassic ammonoid, Churkites noblei, completely septate 30cm, so with a body chamber it would have been 45 +/-, no where near 65, and a far cry from 8 feet.

My Rhaco was in a float boulder on the Roaring Bay shore, but the matrix was distinctive, so I know which bed it came from. It was, unfortunately, worn so that a little under half of the shell diameter was left. It includes the last septum and part of two whorls exposed in the umbilicus. I managed to carry it in my pack back along the boulder beach and up the steepish path to the car... though I didn't feel so good for a while after that!

Jean Guex visited the University of Otago Geology Dept, where I work as fossil preparator (WHEN there is grant or other money to employ me... at 23 years there, I'm the second-longest-term temporary employee in the university). He has an interest in Rhacophyllites, agreed that the specimen belongs in the genus. He didn't disagree with placement in R. debilis, but who can really tell what species many ammonoids belong to?

As to the Williston Lake 2m+ beast, I think you'd have to have a BIG backpack. One with , say, KOMATSU or perhaps HITACHI or CATERPILLAR stencilled on it.