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Cephalopods didn’t have skin around their shells, maybe barnacles and bacteria but that’s it. It depends on this-are the shell lines on top or is the covering on top?

Appears to be Bryozoan

That is the remnant of the orthocone’s shell itself. We normally see only the camerae preserved, which are the filled-in sections, like steinkerns. The shell itself is rarely seen preserved. The outer layer of the shell is called the porcelaneous layer or ostracum and is composed of aragonite prisms.

Wow thank you all! Very informative

A-trilobite, thank you. What do you mean by shell lines? I have yet to learn about that.

I have always been told that those are bryozoan marks showing after death preservation (cephalopod died and sat on the bottle of the sea floor for a while before fossilized)…

Shell lines are just the pattern of lines on the shell. They’re very noticeable on this fossil