Belemnites

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Pronounced – Bel-em-nite
Meaning of name – Greek for a thrown dart or Javelin
Group – Cephalopods, Mollusc
Age – Lower Jurassic, around 195 million years old

Belemnites were carnivorous and free swimming squid-like creatures with a long bullet shaped body and a hard internal skeleton called a guard. The guard was positioned towards the tail end of the creature and acted as a counterbalance for the head and arms. This part of the belemnite is what we commonly find on the beach as a fossil. These are some of the most common fossils that we find on the beaches around Charmouth.

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Belemnite structure

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Sometimes you might find a belemnite tube with a club-like shape at the end. This was originally a cone shaped set of chambers called a Phragmocone. These delicate chambers were usually crushed by the great pressure of burial required to form the fossil.