Stratum.black
Belemnites — Belemnites
Belemnites — Hectonichus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA 3.0

Fossil

Belemnites

Belemnite

Belemnites are the extinct squid-like cephalopods whose solid calcite guards ('thunderbolts') are among the most common Jurassic and Cretaceous fossils on British beaches and in the Holzmaden shale. Guards are cheap; specimens with the phragmocone, ink sac or soft-part outlines from Holzmaden or Christian Malford are rare and valuable. The name Belemnites is used loosely for many genera (Passaloteuthis, Cylindroteuthis, Hibolithes).

PhylumMollusca
ClassCephalopoda
OrderBelemnitida
GroupFossil
Rank (PBDB)order· Paleobiology Database
AuthorHaeckel 1866· Paleobiology Database
Common name (PBDB)belemnite· Paleobiology Database
Classification (PBDB)Mollusca › Cephalopoda › Belemnitida· Paleobiology Database
Range (PBDB)335–33.9 Ma· Paleobiology Database
PBDB occurrences2108· Paleobiology Database

Photographs

Belemnites — Belemnites mucronata (Link) (NHMUK PI C 58076)
Belemnites mucronata (Link) (NHMUK PI C 58076) — © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum (London) Data Portal, CC BY 4.0
Belemnites — Belemnites, FIGURED (NHMUK PI C 58092)
Belemnites, FIGURED (NHMUK PI C 58092) — © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum (London) Data Portal, CC BY 4.0
Belemnites — Belemnites owenii Pratt (NHMUK PI OR 88604 (a))
Belemnites owenii Pratt (NHMUK PI OR 88604 (a)) — © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum (London) Data Portal, CC BY 4.0

Age

Formations

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Belemnites" (Taxon). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19. https://stratum.black/study/taxa/belemnites. Accessed 2026-09-20.

BibTeX · CSL-JSON

@misc{stratum-belemnites,
  title        = {Belemnites},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/taxa/belemnites}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Taxon article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19; sources: stratum, pbdb, wikidata, commons, nhm. Accessed 2026-09-20.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.