Octopus fossil dating 328 million years ago named after US President Joe Biden; know why

A team of scientists analysing a centuries-old fossil of an octopus has revealed that the creature is the oldest ancestor of modern octopuses. Discovered in Montana in 1988, the creature called Syllipsimopodi bideni is believed to date back 325-328 million years and has been named after US President Joe Biden. According to the findings published in Nature Communications, the octopus measures 12cm in length and has ten arms, suckers, fins, and a triangular pen of hard internal tissue to support its body.  The scientists noted that the arms of the octopus were just muscle and two arms of the total were longer than the other eight. 

Why name it after Joe Biden?

Explaining the logic behind the nomenclature, Christopher Whalen, lead author and researcher at the American Museum of Natural History and Yale University told CNN, "I was encouraged by the plans President Biden put forward to counter anthropogenic climate change and his general sentiment that politicians should listen to scientists". While its genus name Syllipsimopodi is derived from the Greek word "syllípsimos," meaning "prehensile," and "pódi" meaning foot, the word bideni is to honour Biden as he was elected as President just when the study was submitted for publication.

Christopher Whalen said as per CNN that the Syllipsimopodi bideni is the "first and only known vampyropod to possess 10 functional appendages". "All previously reported fossil vampyropods preserving the appendages only have eight arms, so this fossil is arguably the first confirmation of the idea that all cephalopods ancestrally possessed ten arms", he told CNN. Vampyropod is a group of octopuses that have eight legs and possess a soft body having an internal shell made of chitin. This new discovery has changed the time frame by pushing back the discovery of vampyropods by  82 million years ago, the discoverers said in their report.

Whalen said that the new fossil of Syllipsimopodi is the best one yet for understanding their evolution as well as tracing their evolution. Interestingly, the scientists now have evidence to support their theory that the vampyropods initially had 10 arms but lost two of them after a certain point in time. It is said that the cephalopods belong to two classes- vampyropods and decabrachians and that the fossil of this new 10-armed creature is an extremely rare discovery. 

Image: Unsplash/AP