Palaeoctopus

Palaeoctopus newboldi is an extinct basal octopod that lived in the Late Cretaceous, approximately 89 to 71 million years ago. Fossil material assigned to this species originates from the Mount Hajoula region in Lebanon. The holotype was found below the Old Covent, Sahel-el-Alma, Mount Lebanon and is deposited at the Natural History Museum in London.[1] It might belong to the Cirrina or be more basal in the Octopoda. Specimens from the Turonian of Vallecino, Mexico, originally described as P. pelagicus,[2] are reinterpreted to be portions of a coelacanth.[3]

Full-color reconstruction of Palaeoctopus.

Palaeoctopus
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous
P. newboldi holotype.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Order: Octopoda
Family: †Palaeoctopodidae
Genus: †Palaeoctopus
Species
Synonyms
  • Calaïs newboldi Woodward, 1896
  • Paleoctopus newboldi orth.var.

See also

References
  1. Woodward, H. 1896. On a fossil octopus (Calais Newboldi, J. de C. Sby, MS) from the Cretaceous of the Lebanon. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 52: 229–234.
  2. Fuchs, D.; Ifrim, C.; Stinnesbeck, W. (2008). "A New Palaeoctopus (Cephalopoda: Coleoidea) from the Late Cretaceous of Vallecillo, North-Eastern Mexico, and Implications for the Evolution of Octopoda". Palaeontology. 51: 1129. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00797.x.
  3. Schultze, H. P.; Fuchs, D.; Giersch, S.; Ifrim, C.; Stinnesbeck, W. (2010). "Palaeoctopus pelagicusfrom the Turonian of Mexico reinterpreted as a coelacanth (sarcopterygian) sular plate". Palaeontology. 53 (3): 689. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2010.00943.x.


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