Year: 2016

Feb12016

Fossil Focus: Ammonoids

Fossil Focus
by Kenneth De Baets1, René Hoffmann2, Jocelyn A. Sessa3 and Christian Klug4. Introduction: Ammonoids (Ammonoidea) are an extinct group of marine invertebrates with an external shell. They were cephalopods, and hence closely related to modern cuttlefish, squid, octopuses and the pearly nautilus. In a non-scientific context, they are commonly called ammonites, but that term really includes only Jurassic and Cretaceous forms in its stricter scientific sense. The Ammonoidea as a whole lived from the Early Devonian to the earliest Palaeogene period, covering a timespan of about 350 million years. Normally, only their shells, also called conchs, or their internal moulds are found in the fossil record. Conchs from adult ammonoids range from about 5 millimetres to 2 metres in diameter. Due to
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Jan12016

Perspectives: 2015 in Palaeontology

Perspectives
by the Palaeontology [online] team Introduction: We’re now into our sixth volume — and calendar year — at Palaeontology [online]. Over the years, we have introduced a lot of fossil groups, concepts from palaeontology and overviews of different parts of our field. An intention when we started was also to provide the occasional overview of happenings in the world of palaeontology: to reflect new developments and highlight some current ideas. To that end, we have chosen to start 2016 by looking back over the past year, and forward into the next. In this article, members of the Palaeontology [online] team have chosen their favourite papers from 2015, and indicated what they hope to be up to over the next 12 months. So without further ado, here is team Palaeontology [online]! Imran Rahman:
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