(AmericanProsperity.com) – When cleaning out a basement, typically nothing of worth is found and most things have wasted away as time, dust, or mold take their toll. But, for curators at an Australian museum, its basement held quite the prize: a long-lost fossil belonging to a deadly, eight-foot-long aquatic creature named endoceras.
When the senior curators of Australia’s Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory were moving their museum to Alice Springs, they rediscovered the endoceras fossil believed to have lived over 460 million years ago. The enormous nautiloid would eat early fish while using gas chambers within its shell to quickly move up and down in the water.
The endoceras was believed to have numerous tentacles near its parrot-like beak and be similar in appearance to a squid. One Twitter account that studies creatures with incredible shells like the endoceras shared what the creature is believed to have looked like. Note its size compared to an average adult diver:
Endoceras (Ancient Greek for "inner horn") is an extinct genus of large, straight shelled cephalopods. The Endoceras is the both the longest extinct cephalopod and largest Paleozoic invertebrate, https://t.co/dUZt5hiRwX #cephalopod #Endoceras #paleo #paleozoic #naturalhistory pic.twitter.com/5loj9VEoIB
— Femorale Shells (@FemoraleShells) July 6, 2021
While uncovering small pieces of our Earth’s history can be fascinating, it can be equally terrifying to imagine that these creatures once roamed the earth. Thankfully, we can fully appreciate this newly resurfaced discovery without having to meet the actual killing machine ourselves.
~Here’s to Your Prosperity!
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