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Description
Shells of all Shapes

While dinosaurs receive most of the spotlight when it comes to creatures of the mesozoic, one should not forget other components of the prehistoric world can be just as fascinating, and, in many cases, far, far stranger.
A good place to show this is the ocean. This was the only environment that the dinosaurs had never set out to conquer, and in their absence, other animals thrived, becoming magnificent and beautiful beasts just like their land-dwelling contemporaries.
Among the most famous and charismatic of all mesozoic marine life-forms are the ammonites. These shelled molluscs swam the ancient seas all around the world, and produced literally thousands of species during their existence. The image of their coiled shells has become an unofficial banner for palaeontology itself, a fact that can probably be attributed to their importance as index fossils: the age of a rock layer can often be identified based on the kinds of ammonites found in it.
While the first thing that springs to mind at the sound of the word "ammonite" is an image of a thick, coiled, and segmented shell somewhat reminiscent of a Ram's horn, the group was, in truth, much greater in their diversity of forms, and considering that these animals also posessed tentacles, the most unusual among them can easily take the crown as the strangest creatures ever to live on earth. This picture shows a scene that could have taken place about 80 million years ago.

1.Scaphites sp.
Scaphites is the type genus of the scaphitidae, a family of ammonites that became extremley widespread during the creataceous. While they are among the more conservative types of ammonites in terms of shape, they do differ noticeably from the traditional round shell. The shell of Scaphites can be, perhaps, best described as an upside-down, capital "G".
The genus was quite successful, containing 16 known species found nearly worldwide.

2. Polyptychoceras sp.
Polyptychoceras is a textbook example of a heteromorph ammonite, a group of animals who owe their existence to a case of natural selection throwing any semblance of logic out of the window. With a shell that reminds most people of either trombones or paper clips, this fellow isn't even the strangest of the bunch, a title that would instead fall upon forms such as Nipponites or Didymoceras. What makes their existence even more bizarre is that they were not some passing fluke of nature, but a highly diverse and successful group with a global distribution and a temporal range spanning most of the cretaceous. What factors led to the evolution of such an abnormal appearance is an enigma that puzzles the world of palaeontology to this day.

3.Globidens sp.
Globidens is a genus of mosasaur, a group of marine squamates closley related to modern day monitor lizards. It was about six meters long, and posessed unusually blunt, thick teeth which would have made it very effective at crushing things. This lead researchers to suggest that it fed on hard-shelled marine organisms such as ancient bivalves and, particularly, ammonites.
With ammonites inhabiting all of the world's oceans, and few other creatures that it had to share them with, Globidens profited greatly from the success of it's prey, with five species having been found in North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Indonesia.

Description
Shells of all Shapes

While dinosaurs receive most of the spotlight when it comes to creatures of the mesozoic, one should not forget other components of the prehistoric world can be just as fascinating, and, in many cases, far, far stranger.
A good place to show this is the ocean. This was the only environment that the dinosaurs had never set out to conquer, and in their absence, other animals thrived, becoming magnificent and beautiful beasts just like their land-dwelling contemporaries.
Among the most famous and charismatic of all mesozoic marine life-forms are the ammonites. These shelled molluscs swam the ancient seas all around the world, and produced literally thousands of species during their existence. The image of their coiled shells has become an unofficial banner for palaeontology itself, a fact that can probably be attributed to their importance as index fossils: the age of a rock layer can often be identified based on the kinds of ammonites found in it.
While the first thing that springs to mind at the sound of the word "ammonite" is an image of a thick, coiled, and segmented shell somewhat reminiscent of a Ram's horn, the group was, in truth, much greater in their diversity of forms, and considering that these animals also posessed tentacles, the most unusual among them can easily take the crown as the strangest creatures ever to live on earth. This picture shows a scene that could have taken place about 80 million years ago.

1.Scaphites sp.
Scaphites is the type genus of the scaphitidae, a family of ammonites that became extremley widespread during the creataceous. While they are among the more conservative types of ammonites in terms of shape, they do differ noticeably from the traditional round shell. The shell of Scaphites can be, perhaps, best described as an upside-down, capital "G".
The genus was quite successful, containing 16 known species found nearly worldwide.

2. Polyptychoceras sp.
Polyptychoceras is a textbook example of a heteromorph ammonite, a group of animals who owe their existence to a case of natural selection throwing any semblance of logic out of the window. With a shell that reminds most people of either trombones or paper clips, this fellow isn't even the strangest of the bunch, a title that would instead fall upon forms such as Nipponites or Didymoceras. What makes their existence even more bizarre is that they were not some passing fluke of nature, but a highly diverse and successful group with a global distribution and a temporal range spanning most of the cretaceous. What factors led to the evolution of such an abnormal appearance is an enigma that puzzles the world of palaeontology to this day.

3.Globidens sp.
Globidens is a genus of mosasaur, a group of marine squamates closley related to modern day monitor lizards. It was about six meters long, and posessed unusually blunt, thick teeth which would have made it very effective at crushing things. This lead researchers to suggest that it fed on hard-shelled marine organisms such as ancient bivalves and, particularly, ammonites.
With ammonites inhabiting all of the world's oceans, and few other creatures that it had to share them with, Globidens profited greatly from the success of it's prey, with five species having been found in North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Indonesia.