Ammonite

Monday, 30th June 2003, West Yorkshire

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We found this ammonite, set in a rounded cobble of dark limestone, on the beach at Sandsend a month ago. Looking at those bunched S-shaped curves which branch towards the ends (right) I'd guess that this is a species of Kosmoceras, an ammonite that lived in the mid-Jurassic, some 180 million years ago. However Kosmoceras is supposed to have small tubercles (nodules) on the shell and I can't see any sign of those.

Whatever the species, this is a creature that swam in Jurassic seas, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. It's a fossil that I couldn't resist picking up: it glistens with a coating of fool's gold, iron pyrites.

Doorstep Snails

It rains all day and this evening first one, then two more Garden Snails, which I expect, being molluscs, are very distant relatives of the ammonites, turn up on the doorstep. On occasion the odd garden snail will hide itself under the moulding at the bottom of the front door and in the morning when we open it there's a crunch. I take each of them and throw them into the hedge at the diagonally opposite corner of the garden. I hope it takes them a while to find their way back because the hosta by the door is beginning to get nibbled. frog

The hosta by the pond doesn't suffer in the same way and we suspect this might be because the frogs eat a lot of the snails and slugs.

richard@willowisland.co.uk