Puzosia is a genus of desmoceratidammonites, and the type genus for the Puzosiinae, which lived during the middle part of the Cretaceous, from early Aptian to Maastrichtian (125.5 to 70.6 Ma).[1] Sepkoski defines the range from Albian to Santonian.[2] The generic name comes from the Serbian words "Puž" (snail) and "oce/ose" (axis), gaining its name from the shell's snail-like appearance.[citation needed]
Children taxa
A Puzosia (Bhimaites) species juvenile shell in Burmese amber
The shell of Puzosia is basically discoidal, evolute to subinvolute, with a wide umbiicaus. Sides bear close spaced sinuous ribs, periodically interrupted by narrow sinuous constrictions, about six per whorl. Whorl section is somewhat compressed, higher than wide, with slightly convex sides and rounded venter. The suture is complexly ammonitic.
Distribution
Fossils of species within this genus have been found in the Cretaceous sediments of Angola, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia (Tolima), Egypt, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Madagascar, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Suriname, the United Kingdom, United States.[1]
In 2019, a Puzosia (Bhimaites) shell was found fossilized in a 99 million-year-old chunk of Burmese amber from Myanmar, marking the first known discovery of an ammonite preserved in amber. The ammonite's shell was presumably picked up and preserved after the resin fell off a tree and tumbled across the seashore.[3][4]
W.J. Arkell et al., 1957. Mesozoic Ammonoidea L365, Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part L, Ammonoidea. Geological Society of America and Univ Kansas Press.
