- Joined
- Nov 19, 2002
- Messages
- 3,028
Hi Allonautilus,
That's a excellent point about fossils of Nautilus itself, afterall, I think it has barely changed in 30m years or so. I'm not aware of any but that doesn't mean anything...soft-bodied fossils of Nautilus, or the lack of, may indeed imply a close analogue to ammonoids. I am certain there are no soft-bodied nautiloid fossils unfortunately. I like your thoughts a great deal there.
I think ammonite eyes may have been more highly developed than the Nautilus pinhole-type as occasional rare fossils have been found displaying striking visual colour patterns; though I suppose such patterns may arguably have been used to confuse predators by breaking up the outline. It's hard to imagine lappets being used for any other purpose than visual display for courtship though as these are only found on the males of some species. I expect they were highly visual animals, inded, unlike Nautilus they had many forms that lived in the shallow brightly-lit upper layers of the ocean too.
All the best!
That's a excellent point about fossils of Nautilus itself, afterall, I think it has barely changed in 30m years or so. I'm not aware of any but that doesn't mean anything...soft-bodied fossils of Nautilus, or the lack of, may indeed imply a close analogue to ammonoids. I am certain there are no soft-bodied nautiloid fossils unfortunately. I like your thoughts a great deal there.
I think ammonite eyes may have been more highly developed than the Nautilus pinhole-type as occasional rare fossils have been found displaying striking visual colour patterns; though I suppose such patterns may arguably have been used to confuse predators by breaking up the outline. It's hard to imagine lappets being used for any other purpose than visual display for courtship though as these are only found on the males of some species. I expect they were highly visual animals, inded, unlike Nautilus they had many forms that lived in the shallow brightly-lit upper layers of the ocean too.
All the best!