Tag: mollusks

Ammonites are a group of extinct cephalopod mollusks with ribbed spiral shells. They are unusually diverse and well known among fossil lovers. Régis Chirat, researcher at the Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon: Terre, Planètes et Environnement (CNRS/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1/ENS de Lyon), and two colleagues from the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford have established the first biomechanical model explaining how these shells form and why they are so diverse. Their approach provides new paths for interpreting the evolution of ammonites and nautili, their smooth-shelled distant “cousins” that still occupy the Indian and Pacific oceans. This work has just been published on the website of the Journal of Theoretical Biology.