Orthoceras Fossils

Orthoceras is an extinct cephalopod that lived during the Devonian period nearly 400 million years ago. Now you can wear this ancient squid on your neck!

Like other cephalopods they lived inside of their shell, had tentacles they could use to grab food and used jet propulsion, squirting water to move. Ancestors to the modern day squid, they ranged in size from a few inches to six feet. As they died their shells accumulated on the ocean floor, were covered in sediment and fossilized. They can be found in Morocco, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden and parts of the former Soviet Union such as Ukraine and Belarus.