Gastropods are a type of mollusc and include animals such as snails and slugs. They have been around since the late Cambrian period (about 500 million years ago and still live in our seas, rivers and on land. Today it is estimated that there are between 65,000 and 80,000 species of living gastropods.
Bathrotomaria Reticulata is an extinct type of marine gastropod. It has a distinctive coiled shell and lived during the Jurassic period, about 155 million years ago. Our example, for Object of the Month, was found during the building works for the Moredon Sporting Hub in Swindon. It was unearthed, cleaned and prepared by former local fossil hunters Dr Neville and Sally Hollinworth. Bathrotomaria Reticulata lived in Swindon’s Jurassic seas, a warm sub-tropical environment teaming with life. It would have looked like a marine snail from today’s seas, with a large foot and tentacles. It probably fed on the muddy sea floor.
(Image - What our Jurassic gastropod may have looked like.)
When Bathrotomaria Reticulata died it became fossilised within the Kimmeridge Clay. The soft fleshy body that lived inside the shell decomposed quickly leaving the hard exterior to become the fossil.
