Researchers have identified what they consider the oldest octopus ancestor – it lived more than 320 million years ago – and they named it after President Joe Biden.
The fossilized remains of the Syllipsimopodi bideni were found in a specimen discovered in Montana and donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in 1988. Researchers at the American Museum of Natural History identified the remains as the oldest relative of the family of vampyropods, which includes the octopus and vampire squid.
The discovery, published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications, pushes back the fossil record of this group by nearly 81.9 million years, to more than 328 million years ago, into the Paleozoic Era.
What’s also unusual about the fossil is that it is the only vampyropod specimen with 10 arms, as opposed to the eight found on modern-day squids and octopuses.
“All previously reported fossil vampyropods preserving the appendages only have eight arms, so this fossil is arguably the first confirmation of the idea that all cephalopods ancestrally possessed ten arms,” study author Christopher Whalen, a postdoctoral researcher in the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Paleontology, said in a description of the research.
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Cephalopods are the class of marine animals including the squid, octopus and cuttlefish. This newly discovered animal is the oldest known cephalopod to develop suckers; each of its arms had double rows of suckers running down each arm. The fact that it still has suckers is extremely rare as they are not usually persevered, researchers said.
The fossil allows for increased understanding of the evolution of the squid and octopus. For instance, the new discovery has a gladius, which is an anatomical part: a flattened, semitransparent remnant of an internal shell. The gladius and preserved soft tissues of the animal suggest a torpedo-shaped body, just like the modern squid.
It also has fins, as do modern squids, which could have allowed for jet swimming, but due to the position of the fins, they were most likely used as a stabilizer, researchers say. From top to bottom this vampire squid is only 4.7 inches.
“Today, only squids and their relatives, and vampire squid, have a gladius,” said Whalen, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow in Yale University’s department of earth & planetary sciences, in a news release. “Octopods have reduced it to a fin support or stylets, which are small, hard, bar-shaped structures.”
The vampire squid, which closely resembles an octopus, has eight arms and two filaments, thought to be remnants of arms. It gets its name from the membrane that stretches between their tentacles, which extends like a cape or parachute.
The study, funded by grants from the National Science Foundation’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology Program and the Paleontological Society, was submitted for publication at the same time of the Biden’s inauguration, so the researchers used the president’s name to honor him.
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