Ancient octopuses dominate Cretaceous seas as gigantic 20-meter predators

12 articles · Updated · Fox News · Apr 24

Researchers from Hokkaido University analyzed fossilized jaws found in Japan and Vancouver Island, revealing octopuses up to 20 meters long living 100 million years ago.
High-resolution tomography and AI showed these extinct finned octopuses, Cirrata, had powerful jaws with extensive wear, indicating aggressive feeding and apex predator status alongside dinosaurs.
The findings challenge previous beliefs that vertebrates dominated the Late Cretaceous marine food chain, providing the first direct evidence of invertebrate evolution into giant, intelligent apex predators.

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