CAMEROCERAS
Meaning “chambered horn”.
Living around 465 million years ago in the Ordovician period, Cameroceras was the largest animal of its time, not only that but one of the largest orthocone cephalopods to have ever existed. It is whats known as an orthicone, a large squid like creature that lived inside a long, hollow shell. This shell was then divided into chambers that could fill with air if Cameroceras wanted to rise in the water or fill with water if it wanted to sink. This method of controlling buoyancy is like that of ammonites and todays nautilus, they are all distant relatives.
Cameroceras was a truly huge animal, up to 10 metres long, that is the length of a bus…The tentacles themselves were up to a metre long. To propel its torpedo like shell through the water, Camerocaeras had a hyponome that hung underneath its head. A hypernome is a flexible but soft tube that could push water through at great pressure to move through the ocean.
Cameroceras is thought to have hunted like modern squids and molluscs, hiding in deep water of a day, then moving into shallower seas of a night to hunt other prehistoric fishes and trilobites. Unlike modern squids, Cameroceras’ tentacles were grooved and didn’t have suckers. It did however have a sharp beak which could tear its prey apart.
Cameroceras fossils have been found in their thousands, entire rocks can be made of their shells alone, some colour has even been preserved. Upon their fossils first discovery, people believed their shells to be unicorn horns!!
Cameroceras would have had chambers simialr to these nautiloid fossils.