Squid have been around longer than first thought
A 500 million-year-old cephalopod fossil shows that modern squids and octopuses have a much older ancestry than was previously thought.
Nectocaris pteryx was two to five centimetres long and resembled a cuttlefish with two long grasping tentacles.
Previously the only known fossil specimen of the creature, described in 1976, defied classification.
Now scientists have been able to analyse 91 new Nectocaris fossils recovered from Yoho National Park in British Columbia, Canada.
They confirmed that Nectocaris was a primitive cephalopod, similar to a squid, but with two tentacles rather than the usual eight or ten.
Researcher Martin Smith, from the University of Toronto, said: "We think that this extremely rare creature is an early ancestor of squids, octopuses and other cephalopods.
"Our study reveals that Nectocaris is similar to known members of the modern cephalopod group, which includes squid, octopus, cuttlefish and the nautilus, as well as common fossils such as ammonites and belemnites, which are now extinct."
The creature probably swam by means of large lateral fins and used a form of "jet propulsion" to make quick getaways.
"Our findings mean that cephalopods originated 30 million years earlier than we thought, and much closer to the first appearance of complex animals in the 'Cambrian explosion," said Mr Smith.
Weird Science Factoid: The regular garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
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Daniel Smith - a long time ago, in a galaxy far away just north of Watford, Daniel fancied himself as a scientist but turned out to be the worst scientist since that bloke who mapped out all those canals on Mars that turned out to be scratches on his telescope's lens. Luckily, he is now not working on the Large Hadron Collider inadvertently creating a black hole that would swallow the world but is safely behind a desk writing this blog, bringing you the fantastical underbelly of nature... weird science.
I really admire this scientist discovery. Their hard work and patience is the key in this discovery. In this find they can study on how this prehistoric creature survives in their time. They can study what kind of environment do this creatures have and how do they evolve or adapt in order to survive. In the future, in some way it may help to create ways for human survival. Guy Riordan