Paleontologist Discovers "Giant Kraken Lair"

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Paleontologist Discovers "Giant Kraken Lair"


A paleontologist has discovered what he believes to be the lair of an ancient, real-life kraken.

The Kraken [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken], as you may be aware, is a giant, octopus-like sea creature of myth, capable of dragging entire ships to the bottom of the ocean. Kids will probably tell you that Bill Nighy used one to put the screws to Johnny Depp not too long ago. But paleontologist Mark McMenamin believes that a real live kraken may have one day roamed the depths, albeit a little further back in history than is generally thought.

McMenamin spent time at the Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada this summer, examining the fossilized remains of nine 45-foot-log ichthyosaurs, giant marine reptiles that thrived during the Mesozoic era. In the 1950s, Charles Camp of U.C. Berkeley posited that these ichthyosaurs had died accidentally in shallow water or from ingesting a toxic plankton bloom, but a more recent analysis of the rocks around the fossils suggest that it was actually a deep-water environment, putting that theory in doubt.

That was the mystery that initially attracted McMenamin to the site, but it was the state of the bones that grabbed his attention once he got there. Not only did they indicate that the reptiles hadn't all died at the same time, but they also appeared to have been "purposefully rearranged," a behavior exhibited in the current era by none other than the octopus. He also noted that the skeletons had twisted necks and many more broken ribs than would be expected in an accidental death.

But that isn't something any normal-sized octopus could pull off. Only a true colossus of the sea could capture and kill such massive prey. Only... a kraken! "I think that these things were captured by the kraken and taken to the midden and the cephalopod would take them apart," McMenamin said.

Even more bizarrely, the vertebrae are arranged in patterns similar to those of sucker discs on cephalopod arms. "In other words," the Geological Society of America stated in a press release [http://www.geosociety.org/news/pr/11-65.htm], "the vertebral disc 'pavement' seen at the state park may represent the earliest known self-portrait."

Lending credence to McMenamin's theory is a discovery by the Seattle Aquarium, captured on video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA8zQw6gDNI], that large octopuses actually hunt and kill sharks. "We think that this cephalopod in the Triassic was doing the same thing," McMenamin said. "It was either drowning them or breaking their necks."

His theory will be very difficult to prove. His hypothetical kraken is soft, squishy and, aside from its beak, entirely boneless, which means the likelihood of finding any fossilized evidence of the thing is extremely low. Nonetheless, McMenamin, who presented his findings at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America yesterday, is confident in his work. "We're ready for this," he said. "We have a very good case."



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The Funslinger

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Sep 12, 2010
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Well, if this pans out, the world just got marginally more awesome. And it has to be said...

Unleash the Kraken!

...

I'll let myself out...
 

Woodsey

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Aug 9, 2009
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[a
href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/10/scientists-found-siberian-yeti_n_1003639.html#s388533]Yetis from the Russians[/a], and now Krakens from the Americans.

I guess that means we have to find Aslan.
 
Mar 5, 2011
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This is relevant.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingsSquishierWithCephalopods

Like Rick Rolling except your trapped all day.
 

Alistair_Darkheart

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Dec 20, 2010
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Scorched_Cascade said:
I know I'm not the only one who thought this when reading the news title:

I'd never seen that video before but awesome doesn't even convey what I feel for it.

So cheers for brightening my night.

Al.
 

DasDestroyer

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Apr 3, 2010
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RELEASE THE KR-
Oh. Ninja'd, of course.
Well then I for one welcome our new Kraken ove-
WHAT? Ninja'd there too?
-_-
 

Tartarga

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Jun 4, 2008
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Someone needs to go all Jurassic Park on that thing right now. I want there to be a Kraken in the world damn it.
 

Hungry Donner

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Mar 19, 2009
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I was all ready to be skeptical but their reasoning is compelling. We know cephalopods were common back then, and there's no reason to believe they didn't have comparable intelligence to cephalopods today. While oddly arranged skeletons can have very mundane explanations, back then "killed by cephalopod" was no doubt quite mundane!
 

Brandon Flaming

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Oct 11, 2011
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"We have a very good case."

Actually you have absolutely NO case. This is a complete guess. He has no evidence at all to back up his theory.
 

JasonKaotic

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Mar 18, 2009
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Or it could just be a really, really big octopus?
Related: 'Bloop', seriously creepy-ass noise heard in the ocean a few years ago, they couldn't identify it, could be the same thing, could not. [http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop_realtime.wav] Either way, this kind of reminded me of it, and I felt the need to share it.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Woodsey said:
[a
href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/10/scientists-found-siberian-yeti_n_1003639.html#s388533]Yetis from the Russians[/a], and now Krakens from the Americans.

I guess that means we have to find Aslan.
All we need now are dragons from Europe. And perhaps Godzilla, but that'd just be a bonus at this point.