Cephalopd from Iowa?

[BellamyBlake]

Hi, 

 

I have a friend from Ames, Iowa who found this in her yard. It looks like a fossil to me, but I'm not good with invertebrates. Is this a fossil? The shell is an inch in diameter. 

 

Thank you, 

Bellamy

    

[Randyw]

I could very well be wrong but that looks like a snail to me. It looks like some I’ve prepared before But I’m not familiar enough with snails to go further then that with an I.d.

[BellamyBlake]

9 minutes ago, Randyw said:

I could very well be wrong but that looks like a snail to me. It looks like some I’ve prepared before But I’m not familiar enough with snails to go further then that with an I.d.

Do snails fossilize? Pardon my ignorance, very new to invertebrates haha

[Myrmica]

Yes, definitely a snail fossil and, because of their durable shells, they are common as fossils.  

[BellamyBlake]

4 minutes ago, Myrmica said:

Yes, definitely a snail fossil and, because of their durable shells, they are common as fossils.  

Thank you, I'm sure my friend will be happy with her fossil! 

[minnbuckeye]

The matrix that the fossil sits in suggests Ordovician more than Devonian. So I am giving you an educated guess that the gastropod found may be Trochonema as pictured here: 

 

 

 

[val horn]

.  You dont find the fossil of the clam that we eat, but the fossil of the shell, or the fossil of a mold of the inside of the almost closed shells.  You can see the layers in the fossil clam shell, and in the second picture the white snail fossil is a shell fossil and the black and white snail fossil  is white where shell remains and black where you are seeing the internal mold.