This specimen is a real fossil. Not man-made. Only polished for presentation. It is believed to be about 65 million to 400 million years old. Ammonite: The word Ammonite is derived from the name of the Greek God Ammon", that appeared with rams horns on his head. Members of the Phylum Cephalopoda, these are the distant Ancestors of the Chambered Nautilus. The animal that lived in these shells looked something like a Squid or an Octopus, with tentacles for grasping its food and moving around the ocean floor. It is speculated that Ammonites ate Trilobites and other small animals. There are several different species of Ammonites. Some Species were more than four feet across in size, while others never got any bigger than a dime. The sea reptile (AM-un nyte), which means" coiled ham: was an air-breathing animal. This invertebrate creature looked somewhat like and is an ancestor of the octopus and the squid, except its body, was covered by a coiled chamber shell. Many had ornate ribs and markings on the outside of their shells.