If you’re also in love with US President Joe Biden as many of us, perhaps you’ll have another reason to do so after reading this article. The term ‘Syllipsimopodi bideni‘ might not say anything to you, but it’s actually the new amusing name of a fossilized vampire squid found by a team of paleontologists, according to Gizmodo.
The marine creature is 328 million years old, and it features 10 arms. Modern octopuses are related to the vampire squid, and the latter creatures offer scientists a lot of homework. We’re talking about the oldest known vampyropod.
Syllipsimopodi bideni had been living in what is now the American state of Montana
Obviously, if we invent a time machine and jump 328 million years in the past, we would see a totally different map of the world than what exists today. The shape of the continents was entirely different than nowadays. Therefore, if you somehow found the secret for how to create a time machine, please feel free to share the information with the world in a comment below!
The total length of the peculiar creature’s body was measuring roughly 5.5 inches. Two arms from the total of 10 were twice as longer as the rest, measuring 1.5 inches.
Paleontologist Thomas Clements explained in an email to Gizmodo the following, as the publication quotes:
For a cephalopod, which is effectively a bag of water with very few hard parts, to become a fossil you need exceptional preservation of soft tissues, which is extremely, extremely rare,
Overall, I think this paper is a really good step that will help refine our understanding of cephalopod evolution—and will hopefully invoke some interesting discussion in the cephalopod community.
The new research was published in Nature Communications.
