🐚 InvertebratesJurassicWell known
Ammonite (Dactylioceras)
Dactylioceras commune
Ammonites such as Dactylioceras are among the most important index fossils for dating Jurassic rocks.
Image: Kevmin · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
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Characteristics
- Scientific name
- Dactylioceras commune
- Period
- Early Jurassic (Toarcian)
- Lived
- 183–175 Ma (183 million years ago)
- Diet
- Unknown
- Habitat
- Open sea
- Length (estimate)
- 0.065 m
Description
Dactylioceras was a small ammonite: a squid-like mollusc with a coiled, strongly ribbed shell averaging 6.5 centimetres across. These animals lived almost worldwide and are so abundant that they serve as index fossils for dating rock layers. Around Whitby such ammonites used to be called 'snakestones'.
Habitat
Shallow, warm seas that covered large parts of present-day Europe.
Fossil sites
Whitby, Yorkshire
Whitby Mudstone Formation
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Contemporaries in the database
Sources: Dactylioceras