Left: three dimensional reconstruction of the ammonite, created from the x-ray and neutron scan data. Right: line drawing highlighting the main features.
Left: three dimensional reconstruction of the ammonite, created from the x-ray and neutron scan data. Right: line drawing highlighting the main features. A research team led by scientists from Cardiff University has provided the first ever 3D visualisation of an ammonite - a marine mollusc group that became extinct with the dinosaurs around 66 million years ago. The new images have allowed the team to analyse the muscles and organs of an ammonite for the very first time, throwing new light on how the cephalopod mollusc was able to swim through the oceans and defend itself from predators. The arrangement and relative strength of muscles reveal that ammonites swam by jet propulsion using the hyponome - a muscular tube-like funnel through which water is expelled - as found today in other cephalopods like modern squid and octopuses. Paired muscles from the ammonite body enabled the ammonite to retract itself deep into its shell for protection, the images also revealed This would have been important since ammonites lacked defensive features such as the ink sac found in modern squid and cuttlefish, and the plate-like hood of Nautilus. Publishing their findings today in Geology, the team say the findings add more insight and evidence that ammonites might be evolutionarily closer to coleoids, the sub-group of animals containing squid, octopuses and cuttlefish, than previously thought.
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