The brilliant iridescent hues found in ammolite come from tiny air gaps in the fossils’ layers, a new study finds.

A chemist explores why the fossilized shells of ammonites, squid-like marine animals that vanished with the dinosaurs, are so ...

Ammonites are a tale of two textures. The prehistoric cephalopods were composed of fleshy soft tissue (the living bit of the animals) and hard external shells, which, according to a paper published ...

A shelled fossil discovered in an amateur’s collection may harbor the first direct evidence of prehistoric sharks eating ammonites some 150 million years ago. The palm-sized ammonite, an extinct ...

Ammonites are a group of extinct cephalopod mollusks with ribbed spiral shells. They are exceptionally diverse and well known to fossil lovers. Researchers have developed the first biomechanical model ...

The muscles and organs of an ammonite — an extinct relative of cuttlefish and squid with coiled shells and tentacles — have been reconstructed in 3D for the first time. The achievement has allowed a ...

Ammolite comes from the fossilized shells of extinct squidlike critters called ammonites. Scientists knew the secret to the fossils’ flamboyant appearance lay somewhere in their layers of nacre, or ...

If you’ve ever been in a shop that sells fossils — the natural history museum gift shop, the nature store in the mall, and so on — you’ve probably seen an ammonite. Its chambered coils make a distinct ...

There's rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we're once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science ...

Ammonites are among the most common marine fossils from the age of the dinosaurs, but no one has found one like this before. It shows one of the swimming marine molluscs without its distinctive spiral ...

For a little while, Mosasaurus maximus was my labmate. The sharp-toothed marine predator was an inoffensive neighbor, though – no doubt because only the fossilized bones, coated in beeswax to stop the ...