EGU26-5239, updated on 13 Mar 2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-5239
EGU General Assembly 2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Poster | Tuesday, 05 May, 16:15–18:00 (CEST), Display time Tuesday, 05 May, 14:00–18:00
 
Hall X3, X3.33
Why did ammonoids go extinct but nautiloids survive the end-Cretaceous mass extinction?
Michael Schmutzer1, Erin Saupe1, Christian Klug2, Amane Tajika3, Frank Wiese4, and James Witts5
Michael Schmutzer et al.
  • 1University of Oxford, Department of Earth Sciences, Oxford, United Kingdom of Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales (michael.schmutzer@earth.ox.ac.uk)
  • 2Palaeontological Institute and Museum, University of Zurich, Switzerland
  • 3Habuki Center & Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Japan
  • 4Department of Geobiology, Georg-August University Goettingen, Germany
  • 5Natural History Museum London, United Kingdom of Great Britain

66 million years ago, an asteroid killed the non-avian dinosaurs. It also triggered the extinction of the ammonoids, an iconic and diverse group of shelled cephalopods. Curiously, a far less diverse group of shelled cephalopods survived, the nautiloids. Why did the nautiloids survive, but the ammonoids go extinct? This question is subject to a lively and ongoing debate. Many (not mutually exclusive) hypotheses have been raised, often with some degree of empirical support. For example, nautiloids had larger hatching sizes, which might have allowed them to survive periods of low food availability. Nautiloids also had larger geographic distributions, possibly indicating greater flexibility in response to varying environmental conditions, or a higher chance to end up in refugia post-impact. Drawing on PaleoDB and other published datasets, we collected the largest dataset so far on Maastrichtian shelled cephalopods, combining fossil occurrences, hatching sizes, and body sizes. We present some preliminary findings based on this data. 

How to cite: Schmutzer, M., Saupe, E., Klug, C., Tajika, A., Wiese, F., and Witts, J.: Why did ammonoids go extinct but nautiloids survive the end-Cretaceous mass extinction?, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-5239, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-5239, 2026.