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Giant octopuses, up to 62 feet (19 meters) long, were among the top marine predators about 100 million years ago, according to a new study that discovered rare fossils hidden in solid rock.\n <\/p>\n
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An extremely well-preserved specimen of the octopus’s powerful jaw shows signs of severe wear and tear from crushing hard prey such as shells and bones, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.\n <\/p>\n
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“This suggests that these giant octopuses may have functioned as apex predators in Cretaceous oceans,” study co-author Yasuhiro Iba, associate professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Hokkaido University in Japan, told CNN.\n <\/p>\n
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“We were surprised. The fossil record of octopuses is very limited, so finding such a large and ecologically important animal in Cretaceous seas was beyond our expectations,” he added.\n <\/p>\n
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extinct <\/strong>The animal, whose scientific name is Nanaimoteutis, was about 23 to 62 feet (7 to 19 meters) long. The researchers estimated the overall size by extrapolating from the size of the beak specimen.\n <\/p>\n \n The giant creature is one of the earliest spinach octopuses in the scientific record to have a paddle-like fin on its head, according to the study.\n <\/p>\n \n Iba explained that octopuses are unlikely to fossilize because most of their bodies are soft and only a few hard parts, such as the jaw, are likely to be preserved after death. Scientists conducted a new analysis of 15 giant jaw fossils previously discovered in Japan and Canada’s Vancouver Island. But the researchers didn’t stop there.\n <\/p>\n \n The researchers also unearthed 12 fossilized octopus jaws encased in Cretaceous sedimentary rock, dating from 100 million to 72 million years ago. The study authors discovered the specimens using a 3D imaging technique called grinding tomography. <\/strong>The study says this is to create high-resolution datasets and AI models.\n <\/p>\n \n Describing the method as a “digital fossil mining” approach, Iba created a 3D model of the jaw fossil.\n <\/p>\n \n During the Cretaceous period, dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, and Velociraptor ruled the land. <\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n And while it was previously thought that vertebrate predators such as large marine reptiles, sharks and fish dominated the ocean, the fossils suggest octopuses may have also occupied the top of the food chain, Iba said.\n <\/p>\n \n “This shows that Cretaceous marine ecosystems were more complex and had a broader range of top predators than previously thought,” he said.\n <\/p>\n \n “In this ecosystem, Nanaimoteuti likely used its large body and long arms to capture prey, and its powerful jaws to process hard food,” Iba added. “Like modern octopuses, they may have used their intelligence to find, capture, and eat prey.”\n <\/p>\n \n Iba is now planning to expand digital fossil mining, which he believes will help discover previously undetectable organisms in the fossil record.\n <\/p>\n \n “Our goal is to uncover the hidden roles of ancient ecosystems and build a more complete picture of how ecosystems actually functioned in the past,” he said.\n <\/p>\n \n Tim Coulson, a professor of zoology at the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the study, told CNN that “the paper’s research is compelling and exciting.”\n <\/p>\n \n “These animals may have preyed on other animals, chewing on shells as well as the bones of large fish and perhaps marine reptiles. Their size suggests they were apex predators at the top of the food chain,” he said.\n <\/p>\n \n “The authors argue that the asymmetric wear pattern on the octopus’ jaws shows evidence of intelligence,” Coulson added. “It’s plausible, but we can’t say exactly how smart these animals were.”\n <\/p>\n \n Jacob Binther, associate professor of macroevolution at the University of Bristol in the UK, who was not involved in the study, said it was based on a “pretty surprising discovery”.\n <\/p>\n \n However, the researchers argued that the fossils do not conclusively prove that Nanaimoteutis was an apex predator that would have hunted and fed on some of the larger marine reptiles with which it shared the ocean.\n <\/p>\n \n “The question is: Does it make sense for an animal like this to take down such large prey?” Vinter said.\n <\/p>\n \n He explained that it takes a long time for the octopus to break down and ingest large animals, so it may have met its energy needs by eating smaller prey.\n <\/p>\n \n “But that doesn’t take away the fact that these were most likely formidable predators, and likely important predators of certain larger-bodied prey that existed at the time,” Vinter said.\n <\/p>\n \n Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about interesting discoveries, scientific advances, and more.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #Fossil #discovery #reveals #hidden #apex #predator #rivaled #marine #reptiles #million #years #CNN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Giant octopuses, up to 62 feet (19 meters) long, were among the top marine predators about 100 million years ago, according to a new study that discovered rare fossils hidden in solid rock. An extremely well-preserved specimen of the octopus’s powerful jaw shows signs of severe wear and tear from crushing hard prey such as … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2520,608,2519,1116,904,732,774,2138,2522,541,2521,744],"class_list":["post-1026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-apex","tag-cnn","tag-discovery","tag-fossil","tag-hidden","tag-marine","tag-million","tag-predator","tag-reptiles","tag-reveals","tag-rivaled","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776970010_479_Fossil-discovery-reveals-hidden-apex-predator-that-rivaled-marine-reptiles.png\")
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