2026/04/23 by Shin Ikegami, J. Mutterlose, Kanta Sugiura +7 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Neuroscience · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Cephalopods and Marine Biology #Hemispheric Asymmetry in Neuroscience #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology
paper · doi:10.1126/science.aea6285
openalex publication_date 2026/04/23 · openalex created_date 2026/04/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Top predators drive changes in ecosystem structure. For the last ~370 million years, large-sized vertebrates have dominated the apex of the marine food chain, while invertebrates have served as smaller prey. Here we describe invertebrate top predators from this "age of vertebrates," the earliest finned octopuses (Cirrata) from Late Cretaceous sediments (~100 to 72 million years ago), as identified based on huge, exceptionally well-preserved fossil jaws and their wear. This extensive wear suggests dynamic crushing of hard skeletons. Asymmetric wear patterns further indicate lateralized behavior, suggesting advanced intelligence. With a calculated total length of ~7 to 19 meters, these octopuses may represent the largest invertebrates thus described, rivaling contemporaneous giant marine reptiles. Our findings show that powerful jaws, and the loss of superficial skeletons, convergently transformed cephalopods and marine vertebrates into huge, intelligent predators.