A villager recently came across a pile of strange-looking rocks in Wanyuan, Sichuan province. The rocks were covered with a pattern of chrysanthemums, shells and maggots. According to Liu Shisu, a local archaeologist, the strange patterns in the rock layers are actually ammonite fossils dating back hundreds of millions of years. Ammonites are an extinct group of marine mollusk animals. The earliest ammonites appeared during the Devonian era, and the last species died out during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. The animal's Chinese name references its chrysanthemum-like surface.
(Photo: China News Service/ Chen Benqiang)
