Belemnite Graveyard With Over 30 Belemnites

This is a mass mortality plate of over 30 belemnite fossils from the Jurassic of Germany. The largest specimen on this plate is about 5" long. Many of the belemnites have some degree of pitting and etching on the surface so leading one to wonder this this might be represent the stomach contents of a predator and the etching due to acid.

Belemnites are probably the most well known extinct cephalopod after the ammonites. They lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and are fairly common fossils found throughout the world. They had a hard, internal, cone shaped structure that is often preserved as a fossil though it is not technically a shell. They had 10 arms but unlike modern squid these arms had small hooks instead of suckers.