Distraction sinking and fossilized coleoid predatory behaviour from the German Early Jurassic

2021/03/16 by Christian Klug, Günter Schweigert, Dirk Fuchs +1 · 1 voice · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology #Ichthyology and Marine Biology #Cephalopods and Marine Biology

paper · pdf · doi:10.1186/s13358-021-00218-y

Abstract

Abstract Exceptional fossil preservation is required to conserve soft-bodied fossils and even more so to conserve their behaviour. Here, we describe a fossil of a co-occurrence of representatives of two different octobrachian coleoid species. The fossils are from the Toarcian Posidonienschiefer of Ohmden near Holzmaden, Germany. The two animals died in the act of predation, i.e. one had caught the other and had begun to nibble on it, when they possibly sank into hypoxic waters and suffocated (distraction sinking). This supports the idea that primitive vampyromorphs pursued diverse feeding strategies and were not yet adapted to being opportunistic feeders in oxygen minimum zones like their modern relative Vampyroteuthis .

Citations

• Black shales and carbon isotopes in pelagic sediments from the Tethyan Lower Jurassic
• The early Toarcian (Jurassic) anoxic event; stratigraphic, sedimentary and geochemical evidence
• Biology and ecology of the world’s largest invertebrate, the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni): a short review

Cited by

• The oldest shark face—anatomy of the Devonian elasmobranch Phoebodus
• Lethal injuries on the scaphitid ammonoid Hoploscaphites nicolletii (Morton, 1842) in the Upper Cretaceous Fox Hills Formation, South Dakota, USA

Discussions

• We know for example that Vampyromorpha (where more data is available) markedly changed their body proportions and ecology since the Mesozoic. See reconstruction of Jurassic Vampyromorpha in our paper [bsky, 6 points, 1 comments]

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