Latest shot from the tank for you all. Growing nicely, it seems.

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/files/Ammoncam.PNG

WOW! :shock: How come I didnt know bout' these lil guys????

:shock: Holy Cow :shock:

:notworth: very, very, very clever my friend...applause is not enough...you should get a medal of some sort...perhaps at Tonmocon?
Once again, :notworth:

:roflmao:

I wish it was true!

:shock: :notworth: Bravo!

:) Amazing!!! Those little suckers seem to pop up all over the place!!!

Carol :mrgreen:

Hey! These are real you know, not dubious paintshop hoaxes! I'm all offended now....

Anyway, we have further interesting developments over in our Nautiloid tank with our six rapidly growing orthocones. Hopefully we should be able to release them into the wild in a couple of weeks.

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/files/Nautiloidcam.PNG

:notworth: :notworth: :notworth:

Beware, bathers of south England !!! What was that old saw about by HG Wells...with the cephs?

Was that "The Sea Raiders" Greg?

You pegged it...escaped my 5 a.m. mind there for a bit...what a wonderful short story that was...

:mrgreen: Think we need to start a new thread????? Instead of 101 uses, how bout 101 Odd places to find an ammonite!!!

Carol

Yeah, good idea Carol. Alternatively, how about "101 Things I Didn't Expect to Find With Squidcam?"

... well it got me thinking ... comparing the squidcam versions. Has anyone a photo of a Nautilus egg that they could post online? Has anyone described/reported anything like this in the fossil record? Surely if cephalopod soft parts can (albeit rarely) fossilize, surely an egg with an outer, hardened egg capsule could fossilize also.

Anyone want to hazard a guess whether ammonites and nautiloids deposited few large eggs to the seabed, brooded their young, or did as most squid do, that is release eggs freely into the water column, singly or in large gelatinous structures, or attach them to the seabed, singly or in gelatinous strings.

Remains of cirrate (finned octopods) eggs litter the deep sea in places around New Zealand, depths > 2500m, as do squid beaks.

Phil obviously used the new Binford 9000 nuclear incubator, with the 32.3 gigawatt flux capacitor to incubate fossil ammonoid and nautiloid eggs. So he should have some left over to photograph. :notworth:

From what I can gather, Nautilus eggs are very large, about 1" (25mm) and ammonoid eggs were small, about 1/32" (1mm). See a newly hatched nautilus here (http://waquarium.otted.hawaii.edu/research/cephalopod_biology.html). Some rocks are full of ammonitellas, the initial chamber of the ammonoid shell, (you can see an ammonitella in the center of my avatar), these are possibly either egg masses or deposits of alot of newly hatched ammonoids.

Steve,

I done a little poking around for you and it seems that unfortunately fossil nautiloid eggs are unknown. That said, estimates of the size of hatchling nautiloids have been made based on the size of the protoconch, the shell that develops inside the egg before hatching. As eggs are unknown I suppose it is impossible to guess whether these eggs were deposited individually or in strings; that’s simply something we will never know for certain unless an exceptionally unlikely fossil turns up. Given this, I very much doubt that any ammonoid eggs are known given that they are believed to be a magnitude smaller.

According to Prof. Theo Engeser’s Nautiloidea Homepage (http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~palaeont/fossilnautiloidea/fossnautpalneocephalopoda.htm) the Recent Nautilus has an embryonic conch of just over 3cm which makes it the largest of all the nautiloids with seven completed septa by the time it hatches. Fossil forms were probably smaller but still much larger than the ammonoids, which as Kevin has pointed out, were planktonic in size. It is believed that ancient nautiloids never hatched with under three septa completed in the embryonic form, and most hatched with more. Engeser also states that the average nautiloid diameter (or length) of the embryonic conch is about 2 cm or less. I suppose with fewer complete septa development time must have been less. It would be certainly nice to find out at what stage in development orthoconic nautiloids hatched and how large they would have been.

Diminishing size of hatchlings, and an increasingly faster growth rate (?) seems to something that the ammonoids developed . This might help explain why the ammonites varied and speciated so quickly, whereas the nautiloids and Nautilida seemed to be so consistant and resistant to alteration. One took the sluggish, slow, cold and stable path, whereas the other evolved for a fast short lived shallow water lifestyle, breeding fast and dying young and fell victim.

Of interest and relevance here is also this .pdf article Anomalies of embryonic shell growth in post-Triassic Nautilida (http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/refdb/pdf/7621.pdf) by Regis Chirat.

Phil

On another note, I checked my NAUTILOIDCAM when I got back from work this evening and got an eyeful! Blimey, these things grow quick! See what I mean?

Latest Candid Cameroceras image for you:

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/files/Nautiloidcam2.PNG

:shock: I love this site!!!!! :lol:

Phil, no offense but...er...it isn't that big, you've just got the camera zoomed in all the way!

Phil, no offense but...er...it isn't that big, you've just got the camera zoomed in all the way!

Er, doh! I never thought of that.....too much Guiness this evening! :D

Phil, no offense but...er...it isn't that big, you've just got the camera zoomed in all the way!

Er, doh! I never thought of that.....too much Guiness this evening! :D

Guiness? ...can I have some? :P

Update today from the third and final tank: BELEMNCAM.

Just two survivors here; luckily I managed to catch an image of both of them. These belemnites have been the easiest to feed so far; I've tried a diet of copepods which they enjoyed shortly after hatching. At three weeks I moved onto mysid shrimps. Now after six weeks they have reached a good four inches in length. I am slowly trying to introduce a diet of small crabs. I've had to install a sump and am running the chiller at 25 degrees to simulate early Cretaceous conditions in the Tethys Sea.

By the way, the orthoconic nautiloids are the hardest to feed. I've had to substitute trilobites for other crustaceans. Trilobites are, of course, extinct and one obviously cannot get hold of them.

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/files/Belemncam.PNG

(Is this joke getting boring yet?)

"Trilobites are, of course, extinct and one obviously cannot get hold of them.
"heheh...
as far as boring goes...certainly not! I laud your photoshop skills...hey, this is the guy who will keep on hashing on the Miskatonic for the next decade or so... :shock:

Hmm....

Well following Steve's observation over at SQUIDCAM that the introduction of a small crab enabled the squid egg masses to remain comparatively clear of bacterial build up, I decided to adopt a similar policy over at NAUTILOIDCAM.

Unfortunately, as has already been stated, I cannot obtain trilobites for love of money as they are extinct. Instead I plumped for using a juvenile sea scorpion (the Ordovician eurypterid Megalograptus) to see if it would perform a similar function.

Initially the sea scorpion ("Mr Nips") settled on the egg masses and groomed them with his chelicerae as one can see in the cam shot below.

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/files/Nautiloidcam271104.PNG

I thought all was going according to plan when I returned an hour later and found that one of the Nautiloids, ("Sir Hugo the Bold") had consumed the sea scorpion. Oh no! I just caught a fleeting glimpse of the fatal moments before turning the camera off in disgust. I had forgotten completely about the predator/prey relationship.

Farewell, Mr. Nips.

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/files/Nautiloidcam261104.PNG

Nautilus cam is ready for its own documentary! :lol:

Melissa

Interesting parallel.

One thing that really concerns me is the thickness of your tanks. Those things are growing faster than triffids, and if you don't look out you're going to become a snack next feeding time!

I was speaking to a jolly good lad over here a few days ago (Nik from Kelly Tarlton's). I pulled a bottle of pickled fish off the shelf and muttered something along the lines of 'what on Earth are those'. He responded 'juvenile Bluefish' - normally a very deep-dwelling thing (several hundred metres). I then asked 'where did you get them' - the answer - drift algae on the surface of Le Ocean. Most interesting it was!!!

Normally you skirt from A to B in a terrible hurry, trying to get somewhere and working with or against the tides and day length, or you're just ambling along at 2.5knots with a fine ringnet out the back. It got me thinking .... Nik said you often get a few of these deep-sea fish in the drift weed, and perhaps this is one mighty cool habitat to go looking for larval squid (ammonites, belemnites and nautiloids also).

My rambling has a point (I hope). When did seaweeds first appear?? If you had rafts of these things (weeds) might it not be an appropriate habitat in which to look (or photoshop) for juvenile ammonites, belemnites and nautiloids .... If not weeds then perhaps the buoyant rafts of dead ceph (ammonite/nautiloid) shells would have done the trick (surely there were rafts of these things in the good ol' days, with myriad epiphyte growths and elevated diversity and density of associated taxa ... aka baby ammonite food).

Next time I'm out in the blue I'll be dip-netting these recent weed rafts on the offchance I'll find juvenile squid taking refuge in them (and dining on the wee island of small fish that seem to cohabit them); I'd imagine a weed raft would be a safer place to hide than the open ocean.

The following pics show what may be small ammonoids (along with a plethora of other things, most common is probably bivalve spat) filling the living chamber of Prionocyclus novimexicanus. This fossil came from a concretion that possibly formed around a algal "raft" or matte.

When spring comes I will go out and study these concretions a little closer.

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3735
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3736
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3737

Not snowing down this way .... tiz a hot and sunny day in fact :D

Neat pic - those tiny wee things in the last chamber!! Fortunately you've got something else in there (bivalve or not) as it would be so easy (for a pleb like me) to jump to the conclusion that this was possibly a brood/brood chamber.

Hope the weather picks up soon! (Or do you like this time of the year?)

Another ?interesting point is that umbilicate gastropods (Recent) sometimes brood in the umbilicus.

I don't think this rock type is confined to the area around the aperture of the fossil, but is found through out the concretionary mass, sometimes up to 1 meter dia. and a half meter thick. This is why I wish I could get out to the locality this fossil was found, all I brought home were the fossils.

The snow is beautiful, and winter is nice and cool, just makes it really hard to see anything. :)

My rambling has a point (I hope). When did seaweeds first appear?? If you had rafts of these things (weeds) might it not be an appropriate habitat in which to look (or photoshop) for juvenile ammonites, belemnites and nautiloids .... If not weeds then perhaps the buoyant rafts of dead ceph (ammonite/nautiloid) shells would have done the trick (surely there were rafts of these things in the good ol' days, with myriad epiphyte growths and elevated diversity and density of associated taxa ... aka baby ammonite food).

Mr. O'Shea: no expert am i but i reckon your rambling makes a good very point.

if we are to accept the widely held theory that algae is responsible for initiating oxygen production on earth, it follows that algae preceeded invertebrates of the sea. to my knowledge, seaweed came into the picture some 500 mn years ago, around the same time as sea invertebrates. here is where i get into a muddle (i welcome any correction to the following): i have always regarded seaweed as algae-based in evolutionary terms; a sort of sophisticated split-off, if you will. if that is the case, your theory is true and you should find much interesting data.

a view from the octopeanut gallery.. atticus finch

My rambling has a point (I hope). When did seaweeds first appear?? If you had rafts of these things (weeds) might it not be an appropriate habitat in which to look (or photoshop) for juvenile ammonites, belemnites and nautiloids ....




It's hard to imagine life in the sea without seaweed, isn't it? Having had a quick search around for fossilised seaweed references, it seems that it has been around in some form at least since the mid-Cambrian, and possibly earlier. I've found an interesting reference to fossils of tiny Cambrian agnostid trilobites (four or five millimetres long) that have been found arranged in long strips, the strand of seaweed they presumably were living on long since rotted away and unpreserved. One of the theories about the lifestyle of Plectronoceras and Palaeoceras, the first recognised upper Cambrian cephalopods, is that they may have been tiny drifters, perhaps they were attached to rafts of seaweed feeding on such herbivorous trilobites or their planktonic larvae(?) (Another theory holds they were more snail like and crawled along the substrate). So perhaps, just possibly, seaweed may have provided the right environment for the earliest cephalopod evolution?

Many forms of graptolite, though not all, were believed to have been attached to seaweed as were some forms of ancient crinoids. I totally agree that rafts of seaweed may have supported a wealth of fauna, perhaps nautiloids would have drifted with them feeding off associated trilobites? Their conches remained bouyant after death and did not sink down, held aloft by remnants of gasses in the chambers. One can imagine mats of these shells intertwined with seaweed drifting for months; afterall, if they had all sunk to implosion depth ammonite fossils would be rare fossils indeed!

Such ammonoid and nautiloid shells must have occasionally drifted for years on the ocean currents as Nautilus shells do today. One would think specimens must have been published with growths of barnacle-type animals attached as the conch of the dead animal formed a host, much as Kevins specimen may be an example of.

On a more serious note, I decided to put them all in the same tank to see what happens.

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/files/Belemncam2.PNG

Phil: my point entirely (albeit not made well since i opted to omit pointing out 500 mn odd years ago equates to the Cambrian period). evolution of both terrestrial and higher marine life would have been impossible without seaweed. i concur with you. in no sense do i wish to imply that i think myself an authority akin to the likes of you lot. but, many of us who are not, can and do think about this stuff. i cheer myself up by reminding myself that Darwin himself was an amateur. ~ a.f. :)

Thanks atticus, thats some real food for thought you've given about seaweed. I've never really thought about it before.

Phil: my point entirely (albeit not made well since i opted to omit pointing out 500 mn odd years ago equates to the Cambrian period). evolution of both terrestrial and higher marine life would have been impossible without seaweed. i concur with you.

Yes, the more one thinks about it, the more sense it makes. Having watched the 'Blue Planet' :notworth: recently I distinctly remember the episode with the huge mass of seaweed harbouring a vast diversity of animals and being picked at by Sunfish. Would the principle have been any different in the Cambrian, I wonder? Seaweed mats provide shelter, food, protection and a diverse habitat in a small area. They could have been a catalyst to the early evolution of the arthropods and molluscs, amonsgst others.

I've sometimes wondered about the earliest terrestrial arthropods too, whether the earliest eurypterids and arachnids that ventured onto land lived amongst masses of kelp-type weed in the tidal zones. Hmmm...

in no sense do i wish to imply that i think myself an authority akin to the likes of you lot. but, many of us who are not, can and do think about this stuff.

(I know the feeling. Don't tell anyone but I've never studied biology in my life. I'm completely in awe of many of the experts here too!)

Cheers,

Phil

Sorry somewhat off-topic, but I just had to post this.

Have a look at the 'Virtual Coelacanth Webcam' here:

http://www.dinofish.com/

Excellent stuff, amusing and informative! :notworth:

Phil: many thanks (check your PMs). All: i asked Phil if he knew anything about this fish and he kindly directed me to this site. a documentary i recently viewed made claim that they engage in tetropod form of swimming; ergo, are seen to be in direct evolutionary line leading toward the higher vertebrates. thanks again, Phil, and kudos. :) ~ a.f.

How are those belemnites doing Phil? Have they eaten everything else yet (my money is on them)

....ooooooh .... I just took a peek; they've evolved!!!

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3843

I was just ploughing through an old CD and found these pictures that were once posted in this thread. As I can't seem to edit these old posts, here's a couple of them tacked on at the end, better late than never.

This was one of my favourite threads from the past, so please forgive.

Three more from the Nautiloidcam.

Phil I hope your not feeding the euripy (aka cuddly water love bug of death) fresh water fish without gut loading them first. you know that fresh water fish lack the nutrients a growing euripy needs.

Hey...That's not 2 m long!

Dan