A study published in the journal PLOS One with the title Human-size ammonites swam the Atlantic Ocean 80 million years ago has revealed that about 80 million years ago, there were human-sized sea creatures with arms like tentacles and a circular shell up to 1.8 meters wide. .
The creature is an ammonite sea giant which is the largest creature in the world. This creature belongs to the group of shelled cephalopods that became extinct about 66 million years ago. The largest ammonite fossil ever found, the species Parapuzosia seppenradensis. Seeing this, Lanese Nicoletta as the author of the study commented.
"This type of species is a fossil found in Germany in 1895. It has a giant shell measuring 1.7 meters," he said in a statement to Live Science.
"That includes several historic specimens and more than 100 new fossils collected from the UK and Mexico. Based on this analysis, they found that Parapuzosia seppenradensis appeared on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean about 80 million years ago," he explained.
"This giant species likely evolved from a related, smaller species called Parapuzosia leptophylla, which grew to only 1 meter wide," he continued.
To collect historical evidence from Ammon itself, the team itself traveled to a field site about 40 km north of Piedras Negras in Northern Mexico. Researchers also found that samples from Parapuzosia leptophylla date back to the late Santonian period.
"In comparison, the species seppenradensis appeared in younger sediments, later at the beginning of the next time period, the Campanian period (about 83.6 million to 72.1 million years ago)," he said.
"It turned out that ammonites with comparable shell thicknesses could also be found across the Atlantic, in the same time period," he explained.
For its size, this oldest specimen comes in at 3.2 feet wide, as with the leptophylla, but in the mid-early Campanian. Now, the ammonite fossil is on display at the Museum of Natural History in Munster.