Longest lived animal found, according to reports in BBC News and Bangor University News, 28 October 2007. Scientists from the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University have dredged up a clam named Arctica islandica from the ocean floor near Iceland. They estimate that it had lived between 405 and 410 years, making it the […]
Tag: molluscs
Leftover Snail Study
Science Shots, 27 March 2006. (whole item quoted) “Lefties unite! It’s the rare marine snail whose shell coils to the left rather than the right. It’s even rarer for these lefties to find a similarly whorled mate. But they do have one advantage over their dextral (righty) counterparts: Analyses of shell scars (dark line) on […]
Writing with Jurassic Ink
Writing with Jurassic ink, reported in BBC News and Times Online 19 August 2009. British palaeontologists have found the perfectly preserved squid and squid ink sac in Jurassic rocks in Wiltshire, England. The squid ink was solidified, but so well preserved the scientists were able to liquefy it using an ammonia solution and use it […]
Fossil Ink Should Make You Think
Recently we obtained a beautifully preserved fossil squid with ink still in its ink sac. So we ran a test using ammonia to extract the ink and to see if we could still write with it. The answer is a big yes, and you can see the photographs in our article Fossil Ink Should Make […]