Overview
- The peer‑reviewed study in Science, published Thursday, analyzed fossil beaks from late Cretaceous rocks in Japan and Vancouver Island and assigned them to finned octopus relatives including Nanaimoteuthis jeletzkyi and N. haggarti.
- Jaw measurements scaled to body size point to total lengths up to about 62 feet, which could make these animals the largest invertebrates yet described.
- Extensive wear on the beaks — chips, scratches, cracking, and up to 10% tip loss — signals repeated crushing of shells and bones and suggests active hunting.
- Asymmetric wear favors one side of the jaw and hints at lateralized feeding behavior that in living animals is linked to advanced brain processing.
- Researchers used destructive grinding tomography with AI to find and rebuild the fragile beaks, and outside experts urged caution on size and apex claims due to extrapolation and a sparse fossil record reshaped by the recent Pohlsepia reclassification.