Ammonite Soft Parts

Pr0teusUnbound

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Nov 6, 2012
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is there any hard evidence that ammonites had eyes an tentacles? ive been doing a lot of drawings attempting to reconstruct Devonian ammonoids and i always have trouble fitting the eyes, tentacles, beak and siphon together in the living space of the shell.
 
no kidding. im starting to think that ammonite either lost their eyes and tentacles at some point in their evolution or never had them to begin with. heres one of my drawings humoring the tentacled or no-tentacled ideas (check the two by the circled 1 near the middle):

 

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Those are some very good sketches showing some very interesting ideas. Keep up the good work. What we need is a fossil to show what the animal actually looked like, something to show whether they had arms and eyes or not. I think they did, and it is not a matter of evolution, but a matter of preservation. :smile:
 
I mentioned in another post that "The Bone Room" offers some interesting ammonite fossils; they all seem to come from Madagascar, Morocco, or Russia. Not being very (read completely un)knowledgeable about ancient life & their fossilized remnants, I have to ask, are they more widespread? I live in Western New York, & I swear I've come across artifacts similar to these & other crinoid(?) looking specimens, but either lacked the tools to remove them from their surrounding rock, or the wherewithal to schlep them back to my car. I know this area was submerged during the Devonian, but that's about where my knowing stops...
 
the species i drew was Tornoceras uniangulare from MI. ammoniods from that genus achieved a near worldwide distribution by 380mya (mid Devonian), so chances are they can be found in western NY. you might want to look up a fossil invertebrate checklist for the Hamilton Group of New York to make sure.
 
... either lacked the tools to remove them from their surrounding rock, or the wherewithal to schlep them back to my car
Somewhere amongst Architeuthoceras' posts is the final retrieval of a fossil he found and recorded several years before :biggrin2:
 
Pr0teusUnbound- I'm heading to the Buffalo Museum of Science tomorrow afternoon; whilst there I shall see what relevant information they may have (& maybe snap some exhibit pics to share with you guys). Thanks for the checklist tip too!
Nectocaris- I appreciate the link, that's an interesting read, though I think membership of some sort is required to read the article in its entirety.
Architeuthoceras- WOW...
 
Pr0teusUnbound, I forgot to mention, I like your sketches, & hope a "rosetta fossil" is soon found to settle some of your curiosities; sometimes you just WANT so bad just to SEE!
 

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