♣ natasha romanova
it’s not the length of a life that matters…just the depth of it. the chances we take. the paths we choose. how we go on after our hearts break. hearts always break. and so we bend with our hearts. and we sway. but in the end…what matters is that we loved…and lived.
Nummulites, and why you should be impressed.
These creatures are basically the giants of the microfossil world. They are foraminifera, and are protozoans (single celled organism). What you see in the photos are the tests (solid insides made of low-Mg calcite) and they would have been surrounded by a slimy cytoplasm so they would have been a lot bigger!
Nummulitic limestone is what the pyramids in Egypt are made from, and they are a big deal in terms of correlating rocks in the Eocene of the Mediterranean.
What is astonishing about them is that they are single-celled organisms, but grow to a massive size! There are still debates about why, but it is believed that they had algae symbionts (diatoms) which helped boost the nummulites’ metabolism so they could grow bigger and live longer!
