[Image] The Largest Ammonite In the World

[spartacus]

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 !

 

[Steve O'Shea]

... 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 ....

 

[Phil]

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.

 

[spartacus]

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

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.

 

[Phil]

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

From Past Lives: The Chronicles of Canadian Paleontology:

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.

 

[spartacus]

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)

 

[Andy Lister]

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

 

[spartacus]

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

 

[Phil]

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. As you are shortly emigrating to France I expect a full 100% accurate translation. Anything less and it's the Spanish Inquisition for you.

 

[spartacus]

Yo Phil, bonjour ! :P
cheers for that , 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
I'm soon going to need a hat as big as whoops not Bob, meant

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 !

 

[Octomush]

HOLY CRAP DUDE THAT THHING IS HUGE!

 

[Phil]

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?

 

[Octomush]

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

 

[Phil]

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

 

[Octomush]

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