Still Waters Posted March 8 #1 Share Posted March 8 (IP: Staff) · In an ancient shallow bay of what is now Montana, the body of an octopus-like creature the size of a fist was buried on the seafloor. Some 325-328 million years later, a new paper published in Nature Communications provides some interesting insights into this mysterious and ancient cephalopod. Syllipsimopodi bideni is small (about 12cm in length), has ten arms, suckers, fins, and a triangular pen of hard tissue inside its body for support. It’s a unique find because “squishy” animals tend to degrade quickly after death and therefore rarely make good fossils. We don’t know when this unusual fossil was discovered, but in 1988 it was donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada. It would sit largely ignored for more than 30 years until American palaeontologists Christopher Whalen and Neil Landman decided to study it. The researchers have named the species Syllipsimopodi bideni after Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States. Biden had just been inaugurated when the study was submitted for publication, and the authors wanted to recognise his commitment to science. https://theconversation.com/meet-the-ten-armed-325-million-year-old-octopus-fossil-named-after-president-joe-biden-178566 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28333-5 3 3 Top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jon the frog Posted March 9 #2 Share Posted March 9 Poor octopus...not deserving that name. 4 Top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myles Posted March 9 #3 Share Posted March 9 Maybe fitting if it were a snake. Octopi are thought to be intelligent creatures. That is far from biden. 2 Top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weaselrunner Posted March 9 #4 Share Posted March 9 Potato head octo?? 1 Top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyperionxvii Posted March 10 #5 Share Posted March 10 Hopefully, despite it's age, it's not that senile. 1 Top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psyche101 Posted March 10 #6 Share Posted March 10 Oh you're all so mean. It used to be his pet, that's why they named it after him. 1 Top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seti42 Posted March 12 #7 Share Posted March 12 Hopefully someone will name some abhorrent, childish, poisonous, and easily spread fungus after trump. 1 1 1 Top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccr8 Posted March 12 #8 Share Posted March 12 42 minutes ago, Seti42 said: Hopefully someone will name some abhorrent, childish, poisonous, and easily spread fungus after trump. Hi Seti Not a problem both Trump and Covid are 5 letters and if you use my exclusively owned insanoscrpt decoder it can work. 1 1 1 Top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wifeyy187 Posted March 14 #9 Share Posted March 14 Just a reminder that there are so many species unknown to humans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Surfer Posted March 24 #10 Share Posted March 24 325-million-year-old dead octopus appears to have less dementia than Biden. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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