Syllipsimopodi bideni is the oldest known ancestor to vampire squids and octopuses. And its fossil has a tentacular surprise.
MNH curator Neil Landman describe a new species of the oldest known ancestor of the group vampyropod, which include octopuses and vampire squid. Surprisingly, the ancient animal has 10 arms unlike its living descendants.as an homage to the current US presidentswam around in the Palaeozoic Era. round 330 million years ago, North merica was a tropical climate submerged under a marine bay similar to the Bay of Bengal in India, says Whalen.
“rm count is the big distinction between the two groups, vampyropods and decabrachians,” Whalen explains. “We’ve always thought that eight arms is a derived condition that vampyropods lost somewhere in evolutionary history, but we’ve never had any hard evidence of that.” The fossil, which measures about 12 centimeters long, can easily fit in your hand, leading Whalen to posit thatwas most likely a smaller predatory cephalopod. Whalen and Landman suspect thatused similar hunting strategies to modern squid, with two of its arms slightly more elongated than the other 10. Living squid use two longer tentacles to snatch and reel in prey, and use the eight shorter arms to manipulate their catch as they eat.