Epifauna on ammonites from the Lower Jurassic of the Severn Basin, southern England, and their palaeoenvironmental and taphonomic significance

Ammonites with bivalves or worm tubes attached are relatively rare among the abundant specimens in the Lower Jurassic (Sinemurian) mudstones at Bishopʹs Cleeve, Gloucestershire, UK, but provide evidence for ammonite taphonomy, environmental conditions and biological interactions between ammonites and epifauna. Epifauna attached only to one side or within the body chambers of ammonites usually indicate post-mortem attachment. Epifauna on both sides of, or overgrown by, ammonites attached in vivo. One large example of Oxynoticeras has at least 51 encrusting bivalves attached exclusively to one side indicating it formed a ‘benthic island’. Four, presumably annual, bivalve cohorts are recognized, with variation in preferred orientation in each cohort suggesting that current direction varied. Both the ammonite and its epifauna were buried by a single sedimentation event. Other informative examples include a Cheltonia that overgrew an epifaunal bivalve, and an example of Bifericeras which bears two clusters of four worm tubes, one of which apparently attached in vivo, the other post-mortem. Other examples bear too few specimens to be certain of the timing of attachment, but most probably attached post-mortem.