Ammonite
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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Friday Cephalopod: Will you be this pretty when you're dead?
Category: Cephalopods • Fossils
Posted on: November 6, 2009 10:01 AM, by PZ Myers
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Comments
Posted by: JD | November 6, 2009 10:05 AM
"You're innocent when you sleep." -- Tom Waits
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | November 6, 2009 10:06 AM
I'm not that pretty
Even while I am alive
Dead, I will be worse
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
|
November 6, 2009 10:09 AM
That's rather a personal question.
Posted by: Sman | November 6, 2009 10:15 AM
Nautiloids- the bastard off-spring of the cephalopods... err,
Posted by: Chris | November 6, 2009 10:16 AM
Will you be this pretty when you're dead?
Yes. Yes, I will. Go ahead and prove me wrong.
Posted by: IaMoL | November 6, 2009 10:20 AM
I just bought a a polished ammonite yesterday at Rock Barrel in Dallas, by coincidence. They are beautiful objects.
Posted by: daveau
|
November 6, 2009 10:22 AM
Lovely Ammonite
Ever growing in spirals
Until it is dead
Yay, Friday!
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
|
November 6, 2009 10:24 AM
No, I plan to fit in an ashtray by then.
Hmmm - since ashtrays seemed to be a stable of kids' claywork in school, perhaps I should hint at the need for an urn, should I be so misfortunate as to get nephews/nieces.
Posted by: Holytape
|
November 6, 2009 10:25 AM
I plan to be stuffed and left at a bus stop. Might as well see the world when I'm dead. What else will I have to do?
Posted by: JBlilie | November 6, 2009 10:25 AM
We have a few of these. Just gorgeous. Also some trilobite fossils on which you can even see the lenses of the compound eyes. Very cool.
Posted by: TheBlackCat | November 6, 2009 10:38 AM
Is that a pyritized ammonite, I can't tell from the picture? I have one of those (a small one, maybe 6 cm in diameter). It is one of my favorite fossils in my collection.
Posted by: Alessa Mendes | November 6, 2009 10:43 AM
I'm not that pretty now...
Posted by: mothra | November 6, 2009 10:45 AM
A cdesignproponentcist,
the Ammonite could not resist.
"That spiral shell, by God it's made!"
-by evolution's grand parade.
A cdesignproponentcist,
yelled Ammonites should not exist!
They can't share seas with squid, their kin.
Its Pygmies and Dwarfs all over again.
A cdesignproponentcist,
the Ammonite could not resist.
Those malformed eyes, those softened brains,
after the feast, just dust remains
Posted by: Ring Tailed Lemurian | November 6, 2009 10:46 AM
When my children were young our favourite day out was to drive down to Seatown in Dorset on England's "Jurassic Coast" and look for fossils. We sometimes found ammonites fossils, up to about 3cms, composed of "fool's gold". They make beautiful earrings.
Seatown also has a wonderful beach with a huge (>100m) platform of thousands upon thousands of belemnite fossils (and the odd ammonite). There are so many that it's impossible to walk across it without stepping on fossils with almost every step.
Posted by: name(erforderlich) | November 6, 2009 10:54 AM
Cuttlefishs comment was almost a Haiku
I am not that beautiful
Even while alive
After Death I will be worse
Posted by: Glen Davidson | November 6, 2009 11:12 AM
I intend to opalize like some ammonite shells have.
If that works out well enough, why yes, I'll be at least that pretty when I'm dead.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Brad Walters | November 6, 2009 11:19 AM
I would like to think that my cochlea will look that good.. depending on how well fixed I am by the med school students.
Posted by: Happy Tentacles | November 6, 2009 11:52 AM
I usually carry a small ammonite in my jacket pocket. Something so ancient and beautiful puts everyday trivia in perspective.
Posted by: IaMoL | November 6, 2009 12:03 PM
(erforderlich):
You're off on the wrong feet.
5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables not 7,5,5 for haikus.
Posted by: Evie | November 6, 2009 12:12 PM
Drooooool......and that is why they are my favorite. They are so beautiful. *sigh*
Posted by: DoctorAtlantis | November 6, 2009 12:14 PM
Thanks for sharing this.
To keep is all to yourself
would have been shellfish.
Posted by: DLC
|
November 6, 2009 12:21 PM
Evolution, yes you'll be there when I'm gone.
Posted by: Acronym Jim | November 6, 2009 12:54 PM
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure the worms will find me irresistible.
Posted by: Alan B | November 6, 2009 1:42 PM
#14 Ring Tailed Lemurian
Greetings fellow primate, tails high!
For those who might want to know more about the Belemnite Marls, the Green Ammonite Beds and the rest of the Lias (Lower Jurassic) there is a fantastic labour of love produced by Professor Ian West (retired) from Southampton University that covers the World Heritage Coast of England. Someone reckoned it was currently at 1000+ pages but any figure is likely to be wrong because he continues to add and update. If you have any interest at all in British geology, this site is worth a look!
You will find the occasional photo of the Professor. He appears to be the very model of a mad English geologist ...
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/Stonebarrow.htm
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/Golden-Cap.htm
Just 2 sections of many.
Posted by: John | November 6, 2009 2:13 PM
What a beautiful example of a Fibonacci spiral.
Posted by: BlueMonday | November 6, 2009 7:48 PM
If we're quoting Tom Waits, this may be more appropriate:
And you'll die with the rose still on your lips
And in the time the heart-shaped bone
That was your hips
And all the worms they will climb
The rugged ladder of your spine
We're all mad here
And my eyeballs roll this terrible terrain
We're all inside a decomposing train
And your eyes will die like fish
And the shore of your face will turn to bone
(Sounds about as pretty as I can expect.)
Posted by: Carlie | November 6, 2009 8:06 PM
Intersperse with more: seven
and seven starts a renga.
Posted by: John Scanlon, FCD | November 7, 2009 6:21 AM
Black Cat #11 (and Lemurian #14), you'd better enjoy it while it lasts (or get it embedded in resin or something). Pyrite is unstable in an oxygen atmosphere, turns to dust on a scale of decades. Like most of us.
Speaking of mortality to cute furry critters, we had a sad loss today, after the five-year-old (when no-one was looking) looped a bootlace round the neck of our young Ragdoll cat, like you always warn them not to, and he ran off and got a trailing knot caught in a fork of the Frangipani tree behind the house, while we were out. Hug your kitties and kids, if you've got'em. I dug the grave in the front yard where we can keep an eye on it, the kids helped pile rocks over it to keep dogs out, and nobody talked any bullshit to them.
Lots of belemnites in the Cretaceous a little east of where we live, ammonites pretty uncommon but I saw one half-exposed in a river bed up near Normanton (Gulf of Carpentaria) that looked a lot like a truck tyre. The tread was a bit worn, but not bad for 100 million years.
Posted by: Notagod | November 7, 2009 3:59 PM
As opposed to the beautiful Ammonite I was created (not) by the imperfect christian god-idea thus, I will never be as perfect as anything that evolved naturally.
Suck it Jesus, christ.
Given eternity, there is no way a christian god could create anything that beautiful.
Posted by: llewelly | November 8, 2009 11:18 AM
No surprise to find atheists worshiping Ammonites. As anyone familiar with the Old Testament knows, God hated the Ammonites.
Posted by: Sean Bernhoft | November 8, 2009 6:10 PM
PZ, are you familiar with the gemstone Ammolite? It is the fossilized nacre of ammonites. "Grandmother of pearl," one might say. This atrocious website (who uses homestead?) has some pretty nice examples of it:
http://canadianammolite.homestead.com/Ammolite14kpendants.html
Might be a good gift idea for the wife? ;)