Pollished belemnites.jpg

Polished Belemnites

SITE LOCATION: Madagascar
TIME PERIOD: Jurassic (~145-201 Million Years Ago)
Belemnitida (or belemnites) is an extinct order of cephalopods which existed during the Mesozoic era, from the Hettangian age of the Lower Jurassic to the Maastrichtian age of the Upper Cretaceous. The belemnite is the state fossil of Delaware. Belemnites were superficially squid-like. They possessed ten arms of equal length studded with small inward-curving hooks used for grasping prey. However, they lacked the pair of specialized tentacles present in modern squid. Belemnites (and other belemnoids) were distinct from modern squid by possessing hard internal skeletons. The internal skeleton was composed of the guard or rostrum (plural: rostra), a heavy solid structure at the posterior of the animals.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Order: †Belemnitida