Ammonites, what are they?The Ammonites are an extinct group of cephalopods, which appeared in the Lower Devonian about 400 million years ago and extinguished at the end of the Cretaceous, together with the dinosaurs (65 million years ago), leaving no known descendants. Like all cephalopods known this organisms were carnivorous: active predators of marine animals, microphagous (plankton), scavengers, and even cannibals. The shell of ammonites in general has the form of a spiral wound on a plan (although some species, such heteromorphy, have a more complex three-dimensional winding) and it is this feature that has given their name. The appearance infact resembles a coiled horn, like that of a ram (the Egyptian god Amon was commonly depicted as a man with ram's horns). Pliny the Elder described the fossils of these animals ammonis cornua, "horns of Ammon." Often the name of the species of Ammonites ends with -ceras, from a greek word (keras) whose meaning is, in fact, "horn" (eg. Pleuroceras etymologically means horn with the coast).
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