A newly discovered fossilized vampire squid is named after the president of the United States, Joe Bidenannounced a team of paleontologists.
The Syllipsimopodi BideniDescribed as an “incredibly rare” fossil, it was first excavated in Montana and then donated to the Royal Museum of Canada in 1988.
But it remained untouched in a drawer for decades until a scientist brought it out for a closer look.
Speaking to The New York Times, Christopher Wallen, a paleontologist from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, He said He first noticed the squid’s preserved arms and saw small suckers in the rock.
“This has been sitting in a museum since the ’80s and nobody realized it was important,” Wallen said. “We came across this significance because I noticed arm suckers.”
The Syllipsimopodi Bideni They drifted across oceans approximately 328 million years ago. According to Whalen, it is the oldest known ancestor of vampires, a group that includes vampire squids and octopuses.
The fossil’s first name translates roughly to “foot that can be stretched,” since it has 10 arms and is the oldest known cephalopod with suckers on each of its arms. The modern vampire squid, which is not a squid but a relative of the octopus, has eight arms and two filamentous bristles.
according to paperThe fossil appears to contain a preserved ink sac.
Whalen, with Neil Landman, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, described the new species in Nature Communications on Tuesday.
Their decision to name the squid after Biden came because they were “emboldened by his plans to tackle climate change and fund scientific research,” Wall said in an email to the New York Times.
The Syllipsimopodi Bideni Not the first species to be named after a chief. Nine species are named after Barack Obama, including a spider, a hairworm, and several fish. Blind friendly moth Amphibians The one who buried her head in the sand was named after Donald Trump.
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