Orthoceras - Fossilised animal - 31 cm

Beautiful plaque featuring several Orthoceras specimens from Morocco.

These marine animals were among the first living forms to inhabit the planet.
Discovered in the northwestern Sahara.

Orthoceras are extinct cephalopod mollusks, belonging to a group that has disappeared.
These marine creatures lived in the oceans hundreds of millions of years ago, mainly during the Ordovician and Silurian periods.
Their name, which in Greek means 'straight horn', refers to the distinctive shape of their elongated conical shell.
This shell was divided into chambers, separated by walls, and traversed by a siphon.

The Orthoceras shell is probably their most distinctive feature.
It was made of aragonite, a mineral that also forms the shells of many extant mollusks.
Over time, through geological processes such as sedimentation and mineralization, these shells fossilized, giving rise to the specimens we admire today.

Orthoceras fossils are precious witnesses of marine life from a bygone era.
Their study allows scientists to reconstruct ancient ecosystems, understand the evolution of species, and better understand the major changes that marked Earth's history.

The metal support is not included and is used solely for display purposes.