November 2024
Germanonautilus bidorsatus (von Schlotheim, 1820) MBCN
Germanonautilus bidorsatus is an extinct species of nautilus that lived in Europe during the Triassic period. Nautiluses are cephalopod mollusks (like octopuses and squids) that were once very numerous and diverse, but today only a small handful of species survive in the Indo-Pacific. Germanonautilus bidorsatus is, therefore, a distant relative of the current nautiluses, with a very swollen shell that features a deep ventral groove.
This piece of the month, from the J. Bauçà collection, comes from the Middle Triassic of the old Ses Planes quarry in Esporles. It corresponds to the shell of one of these animals, which, when fossilized, recrystallized into the mineral calcite. Some oysters can be observed that had settled on the shell of the nautilus during its life. It was also deformed during the uplift of the Sierra de Mallorca, so it is not perfectly symmetrical.
- Origin: Old Ses Planes quarry, Esporles, Mallorca.
- Age: Middle Triassic (about 240 million years ago).
