Fossil Specimen
Polished orthoceras spear fossil specimen. This orthoceras fossil comes from Madagascar, and its length is approximately 8.2 inches. It weights 6.7 ounces (190 g). This would make an excellent gift.
Orthoceras meaning “straight horn” refers to the characteristic long, straight, conical shell and is a type of extinct marine cephalopod, which is an ancestor of our modern-day squid. The soft body lived in the last open-ended segment at the large end of the conical shell. As the body grew and the housing segment became too small, a dividing wall, called the septa, grew to separate the old “home chamber” from the new one, which is the same for ammonites and goniatites. They lived in the Middle Ordovician period (470 to 458 million years ago).