Thursday 5 October 2017

PrehiScotInktoberfest Day 5: Cluthoceras truemani




PrehiScotInktoberfest Day 5 takes us to Carboniferous Lesmagahow: 359-299 million years ago, South Lanarkshire was under the sea, and populated by all manner of weird beasties. 


 

One such beastie was Cluthoceras truemani ("Trueman's Clyde Horn"), a breed of ancient cephalopod known as a goniatite (doesn't it even sound Scottish, "goan-ya-tite!"), precursors to the more famous ammonites we all know and love. Clutha is well known to us in the West Coast of Scotland as an ancient name for the River Clyde, linked to the ancient Celtic deity Clota.




Cluthoceras was only little: its shell was about a centimetre in circumference. But from these small things, giant wonders emerged!

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