Australia Just Got a Giant Prehistoric Squid Tattoo
The dug-out drawing of an ammonite covers around one million square feet.
Tens of millions of years ago, back when Australia cradled a salty inland sea, tentacled creatures called ammonites swam through it, pumping air in and out of their spiral shells and hunting for plankton at the water’s surface.
These days, the sea is bone dry, and the ammonites long gone. But these prehistoric mollusks are finally getting their due: as the Townsville Bulletin reports, a couple of guys just drew a very, very large one in the dirt where the creatures’ home used to be.
See our giant fossil from space - Townsville Bulletin - See our giant fossil from space Townsville Bulletin Mr … https://t.co/aXOv5gbfbr
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The massive ammonite has been etched into Marathon Station, a flat plain in Queensland that was once a World War II airfield. It was mapped out by mathematician David Kennedy, and dug up by the station’s owner, Rob Ievers, with a firefighting plough—Kennedy put guiding pegs in the ground, and Ievers wove the machine as closely as he could around them. It’s approximately one million square feet.
Viewed from above, the creature’s shell dwarfs the streambeds that surround it. Its tentacles stretch towards the horizon. “It will be a big surprise” for pilots flying over, Ievers told the Bulletin.
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