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Ammonoid Color Patterns

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Ammonoid Paleobiology: From anatomy to ecology

Part of the book series: Topics in Geobiology ((TGBI,volume 43))

Abstract

Color patterns on ammonoid cephalopods are rarely preserved despite the fact that millions of the shells of these extinct animals have been recovered from Devonian through the Upper Cretaceous rocks that were deposited in a wide variety of marine environments around the world. New information on this biological feature continues to be slowly discovered; however, rarity continues to limit the study of this phenomenon. New discoveries of the past twenty years include several cases of false color patterns and the documentation of iridescent color patterns that appear to have become extinct at the end of the Cretaceous with the demise of the ammonites. Additionally, there appears to be a direct relationship to different color patterns (longitudinal bands, transverse bands, monochromatic shells and no preserved color pattern) in the Lower Triassic to habitat and life mode. It is unknown if this relationship holds true for post Triassic occurrences.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank R. Thomas Becker (Münster, Germany) for bringing to our attention the Devonian pyritized material with the false color patterns during a visit to Berlin and to Dieter Korn (Berlin, Germany) for loaning the specimens to us for examination. He also brought to our attention the important report by Ebbighausen et al. (2007). We wish to thank Christian Klug (Zürich, Switzerland) for providing timely updates on literature sources and some photographs for this report.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, West Jones St., Raleigh, NC, USA

    Royal H. Mapes

  2. Larson Paleontology Unlimited, 12799 Wolframite Rd., 57751, Keystone, SD, USA

    Neal L. Larson

Authors
  1. Royal H. Mapes
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  2. Neal L. Larson
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Correspondence to Royal H. Mapes .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Paläontologisches Institut und Museum, University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Christian Klug

  2. Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions und Biodiversitätsforschung, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany

    Dieter Korn

  3. GeoZentrum Nordbayern, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany

    Kenneth De Baets

  4. Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, USA

    Isabelle Kruta

  5. North Carolina Museum of Natural Science, Raleigh, USA

    Royal H. Mapes

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Mapes, R., Larson, N. (2015). Ammonoid Color Patterns. In: Klug, C., Korn, D., De Baets, K., Kruta, I., Mapes, R. (eds) Ammonoid Paleobiology: From anatomy to ecology. Topics in Geobiology, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9630-9_2

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