Wyoming fossils reveal the 'chunkiest' squid relative ever found
Come for the local nickname for these fossils ('squid butts'), stay for how CT scans tied a 160-million-year-old animal to a family thought long gone.
Two fossils from Wyoming's Sundance Formation belong to a new species of belemnite, an extinct squid relative, that lived about 160 million years ago, according to a University of Manchester release on ScienceDaily. The species, Wyoteuthis linsterorum, is described in Papers in Palaeontology.
Belemnite fossils are so common in Wyoming that locals call them "squid butts," says coauthor Jessica Lippincott. Most are bullet-shaped, 1 to 2 cm across. This one's internal skeleton is about 10 cm long and 6 cm wide, the thickest known, and the researchers estimate the whole animal reached about 60 cm.
Paleontologist Bill Wahl said the specimen "stuck out like a sore thumb." CT scans linked it to a belemnite family scientists had believed died out millions of years earlier.
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Belemnitida
After exploring Scientists discover a bizarre Jurassic “squid” unlike anything ever seen | ScienceDaily, to meet the whole extinct group, try Belemnitida.
Belemnites were squid-like cephalopods from the Late Triassic to Late Cretaceous with an internal skeleton; the bullet-shaped guard is the part usually fossilized.
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