Our Liparoceras was a happy ammonite that swam in the tropical sea of early Jurassic Birmingham 200 million years ago. It bobbed along upright in its shell looking for prey - which was pretty much anything it could catch: fish, other cephalopods and so forth. In fact, it looked quite like a cuttlefish stuffed into a snail shell, with all ten tentacles sticking out. It swam by jet propulsion, squirting water through its siphon, and also squirted ink at any ichthyosaur that came too close.
Published on August 15, 2009 10:46