300-million-year-old sea creature loses title as world's oldest octopus
AP News • • science
Key Points:
- Fossilized remains previously identified as the world's oldest octopus, Pohlsepia mazonensis, have been reclassified as a relative of the nautilus, a shelled cephalopod, according to new research by University of Reading zoologist Thomas Clements.
- Using synchrotron imaging, researchers discovered the fossil's radula had 11 teeth per row, inconsistent with octopuses which have seven or nine teeth, indicating it is not an octopus but a nautiloid.
- The fossil, found in Illinois' Mazon Creek area and dated to about 300 million years ago, was initially thought to push back octopus evolution by a significant margin, but the new findings close that evolutionary gap.
- Guinness World Records will remove Pohlsepia mazonensis from its listing as the earliest known octopus fossil following the publication of these findings in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
- The Field Museum in Chicago, which houses the fossil, now holds what is considered the oldest soft tissue nautilus specimen, a significant discovery for cephalopod research.
