Daily Reminder - They Are Both Sick And Twisted

A PALEONTOLOGIST thinks he has found the ancient lair of a 33m type of octopus - like the fabled kraken - that took giant victims down to the sea floor and artfully arranged their bones.

Scientists have long been baffled by a fossil collection of nine 14m Triassic icthyosaurs at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada.

Different degrees of etching on the bones suggest that the whale-like creatures were not all killed and buried at the same time.

Adding to the mystery, the bones look like they had been purposefully rearranged.

Mount Holyoke College paleontologist Mark McMenamin made a connection between the bones' arrangement and a modern predator that is known for its intelligent manipulation of bones.

"Modern octopus will do this," Prof McMenamin said, offering a hypothesis that a very large sort of octopus, like the kraken of mythology, could be responsible for the ancient array.

"I think that these things were captured by the kraken and taken to the midden and the cephalopod would take them apart."

Prof McMenamin, who presented his research yesterday at the Annual Meeting of The Geological Society of America in Minneapolis, took his theory even further.

He suggested that since the arranged vertebrae resemble the pattern of sucker discs on an octopus tentacle, the kraken may have created a type of "self portrait" with the bones of its victims.

That hypothesis prompted criticism from skeptics and headlines like Discovery News' "Smokin' Kraken?"

Prof McMenamin acknowledged his theory was bold but told the Los Angeles Times that it would stand up to the skepticism.

"There is a puzzle piece fit to it," he said of the strange fossil collection.

"I cannot conceive of a physical process that would do it, it's some kind of intentional process.

"And it's not a prank, either, because the excavation of the site, which has been well documented and photographed, has puzzled experts from the beginning."

Thanks to Tom for sending me this.