Ancient Krakens Making Self-Portraits? 135
First time accepted submitter Sanoj writes "Strange patterns of ichthyosaur bones have been found on an ancient deep-water seabed. One paleontologist has put forward the theory that these could have been the work of giant cephalopods who were eating the swimming dinosaurs and then arranging the vertebrae to resemble their own tentacles. Sound far-fetched? Apparently, the modern octopus also does this."
Re:Paleontologist using the term "Kraken" (Score:5, Informative)
"And, says McMenamin, there is one modern predator that does exactly this - the octopus. He suggests that the remains may indicate the existence of a giant octopus, similar to the Kraken of kegend."
I'm surprised their spell-checker didn't catch the mis-spelling of "legend", but my point is that he's talking about the possible existence of an undiscovered animal. If it hasn't been discovered, it hasn't been given a name, so it makes sense to compare it to something people can relate to. An octopus has no bones, so I'm not sure what kind of fossils we'd be able to find from an ancient giant octopus. Maybe a giant beak?
Re:Science is Awesome (Score:5, Informative)
Some other, rather more reliable indications that this guy may indeed be full of crap:
Brian Switek's commentary on the story on his Laelaps palaeontology blog [wired.com]
P. Z. Myers' view of the story on his Pharyngula blog [scienceblogs.com]
Discussion of the story on an archive of geologists' conversations on Twitter [tumblr.com]
The professor's own profile page [mtholyoke.edu], which shows he has quite a history of making far-reaching claims.