Dactylioceras Ammonites Mass Mortality

Description: Dactylioceras athleticum is a classic ammonite species, best known from Germany. They are yellow/tan and found in a sandy brown matrix. Large death assemblages like this are highly collectable, and currently quite hard to find in this size and quality. This large multi-specimen plate has all the visual preservation characteristics one would look for. The specimens are fully 3D and look amazingly life-like. It is the largest of three specimens I have to offer.

Dactylioceras was a widespread genus of ammonite from the Jurassic period, approximately 172 million years ago. Dactylioceras has been collected from almost every continent, and was one of the most successful ammonite lineages ever. They are abundant throughout Europe, with exceptionally fine specimens found in England and Germany. Like many other ammonites, the genus Dactylioceras is extremely important in biostratigraphy, being a key index fossil for identifying their region of the Jurassic. Mass mortality specimens of Dactylioceras suggest that these ammonites may often have died shortly after spawning. The dead shells were probably gently washed up into a shell bank on the margins of some long lost Lower Jurassic sea.