Giant Octopuses That Ruled the Oceans

The kraken is a legendary sea monster from old Norwegian stories. It was famous for dragging large ships down into the deep ocean. While this creature is just a myth, a new study shows that a real giant once lived in the seas. Millions of years ago, octopuses the size of whales ruled the oceans. This discovery changes how we understand the Late Cretaceous Period. This time span lasted from about 66 million to 100 million years ago.

Researchers looked at jaw fossils to learn about these huge animals. The findings were published in the journal Science on April 23. The study suggests that while dinosaurs ruled the land, these super-sized cephalopods were the largest marine animals of their time. Studying fossilized octopuses is very hard. Because they have soft bodies, most of their parts rot away before they can become fossils. Very few hard parts remain to preserve the memory of the animal.

However, both ancient and modern octopuses have a hard, beak-like jaw. This structure is made of chitin. Chitin is a strong material that can survive the death of the animal. It can fossilize over millions of years. Yasuhiro Iba, a paleontologist at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, notes that these jaws clearly belonged to an octopus-like creature. However, details about their body size and role in nature remained a mystery.

To solve this, Iba and his team examined 15 fossil jaws. These fossils were found in Japan and on Vancouver Island in Canada. They date to the very end of the age of dinosaurs. The research team took careful measurements of the fossils. They compared the mystery jaws to those of other octopus and squid species. Additionally, the team discovered 12 more jaw fossils embedded directly in rocks in Japan.