95M-Year-Old Octopus Fossils Discovered 290
mmmscience writes "A new study published in Paleontology is a truly terrific find. Not only did a group of European scientists find a fossilized octopus, they found five complete fossils that show all eight legs in great detail, including a ghost of the characteristic suckers. The discovery of the 95-million-year-old specimens was made in Lebanon. 'What is truly astonishing to the scientists is how similar these ancient creatures are to their modern-day counterparts. Dirk Fuchs, lead author on the study stated, "These things are 95 million years old, yet one of the fossils is almost indistinguishable from living species."'"
selection pressures (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny how some creatures are under such pressures they rapidly develop and others have settled into their niche so well there's been little change, thus the living fossils. It's amazing to think that the ancestors of today's megafauna were little shrew-like nothings back then and were able to progress from that to elephants and rhinos and, hell, human beings while octopi and sharks are just tooling around looking pretty much the same.
I know that there's no intelligent motive behind evolution, it is an impersonal process of optimization for a set of conditions and there's no selection bias for complexity, as we humans would view such things. It seems like the living fossils are stuck in a rut but as far as evolution is concerned, it's not concerned. There's no personified mind involved, nature is not a guiding intelligence, it's just genes playing along according to rules, rules. Still, I can't help feeling octopi's wife is nagging him "For crimminy's sake, just look at you! 95 million years and you're still mucking about on the ocean floor! There's an entire world out there of land dwellers! Those little shrews went and developed opposable thumbs and they're running the place! And just what have you accomplished, Mr. Eight Arms and no Endo-Skeleton? You just float around and let them turn you into seafood. I'm leaving you for squid! He's got backbone for an invertebrate! At least he's capable of taking out some air-breathers every now and then!"
Land vs. Sea evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
The remark about sharks and octopods not having evolved in millions of years, compared to all the evolutions witnessed on land, make me wonder if it is caused by the oceans being a more stable environment across the eons than land ?
I mean, look at the coelancanth : living fossil. Do we have anything as ancient on solid ground ?
Or is land intrisincally a much more dynamic/chaotic/subject to wild changes ecosystem ?
How does evolution detract from God? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a fairly deep believer in God and it always puzzled me why someone would have a problem with evolution.
I'm not asking you to believe in God if you don't, I honestly don't care. What I am saying is that those who believe in God and doubt the science should look at the story science teaches us for what it is and see the grandeur in it. Our universe is so big and so old, that it is a thing that a God would make, not some puny planet but a tree's age old.
We always ask, believer or no, could God make a stone so large that He cannot move it? Maybe he can and he did, a simple set of equations that shape time and space into our universe that yields practically an infinity of variety, and is why we have free will.
Re:Evolution (Score:4, Interesting)
No not really. It simply means that the octopus has not been "challenged" by its ocean environment or catastrophe, and therefore not forced into extinction or modification.
Turn the earth into a giant snowball, and then we'll see how quickly the octopus dies out. - http://nai.nasa.gov/newsletter/03182005/#9 [nasa.gov]
Re:Lack of fossils (Score:3, Interesting)
True enough. Of course, there are freak exceptions, such as when the conditions make it difficult or impossible for bacteria to do a whole lot. Trees in coal mines are of this sort.
Another situation, which produces something analogous to a fossil but isn't really, is when you get a soft body forming an impression as a hollow. Again, this might happen if decomposition is extremely slow. If that hollow is then filled in at a subsequent time, you form something that looks like a fossil. (Really, it's casting from a mould, rather than a replacement process.)
Re:Retract the pods! Prepare to jump. (Score:1, Interesting)
There are some differences between these ones and extant ones, such as the occurrence of an internal shell. "Changed little" != "not changed". That's why they say "almost indistinguishable" from living species. These fossils were assigned to 3 new species and 2 new genera (Keuppia levante gen. nov., sp. nov., Keuppia hyperbolaris gen. nov,. sp. nov. and Styletoctopus annae gen. nov, . sp. nov), rather than to modern species. That means the authors thought the specimens were different enough to warrant new names, but to a non-specialist they still look much like modern octopods. Change is a question of degree.
Octopods have evolved, but that doesn't mean they've changes in a huge way morphologically, and there isn't much evolutionary cause for change if a body plan works as it is. Selection tends to maintain something that works.
It's kind of like asking why hammers haven't changed much in the last 50 years (although perhaps to a carpenter they have).
Re:selection pressures (Score:3, Interesting)
What is the point of having evidence if people are either going to interpret it wrong by accident or interpret it with purposeful bias which helps them accomplish their agenda?
Because then other scientists can go and verify your results, and contradict you if you're wrong? See, that's one of the key differences between magic and science. The latter is actually verifiable (and falsifiable).
I hope you realize how many assumptions and faith go into many scientific theories, including evolution, because by definition the evidence for many theories, including evolution, is not complete, and assumptions are made to fill in the gaps.
Such as? Please, name me one single "faith-based" assumption included in a theory of your choice (you've already mentioned evolution, so I expect you'll pick that, but I'll happily leave the field open). Go head, try me. Because I *strongly* suspect you simply don't understand how the scientific process (or the theory you select, whatever that happens to be) works (don't worry, it's not your fault... solid, logical thinking isn't exactly stressed in schools these days, and it's *definitely* not emphasized in the average adult's day-to-day life).
Re:Retract the pods! Prepare to jump. (Score:4, Interesting)
And who know how much their brains and nervous systems have evolved? Were these paleo-podes as smart as their modern brethren? Did they have all the camouflage and mimicry and other astounding talents that seem surprisingly sophisticated for something so squidgey and alien-looking?
I don't know whether scientists could possibly infer that kind of information from fossils (brain size, I suppose) but it's certainly possible that these animals evolved into a very optimal body form all those millions of years ago and have been perfecting more subtle aspects than their gross physiognomy.
Re:German spelling and pronunciation . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
I got a better one: You can make huge words out of everything. No spaces needed.
Rhabarberbarbarabarbarenbartbarbierbierbarbärbel [youtube.com]. (Bärbel [a girl] of the bar of the beer of the barber of the beards of the barbarians of the bar of Barbara of the rhubarb.)