The fattest “squid” in history is found in Wyoming: it lived 160 million years ago and its fossil spent decades forgotten in a drawer

Dr. Dean Lomax, honorary researcher at the University of Manchester, has led a research team made up of scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. This group of experts, as they explain in the journal Papers in Paleontology, has discovered in Wyoming the fattest squid ever known, which lived some 160 million years ago.

This is a ‘Wyoteuthis linsterorum’, known as a belemnite, which is an extinct prehistoric species that was related to present-day squid and octopuses. It stood out for having a very thick, barrel-shaped internal structure. In the case of the latter identified, it is the largest ever found to date.

The incredible dimensions of this squid

Typically, according to data from the Sundance Formation in Wyoming, the fossils are between five and 10 centimeters long, and between one and two centimeters wide. Its face is about 10 centimeters long and six centimeters wide. It is believed that when they were alive they reached about 60 centimeters.

This group of experts used a technique known as computed tomography (CT) and analyzed the internal structures of the fossils. In doing so, they realized that there was a connection to a family of belemnites believed to have gone extinct long before this type of animal lived.

“One possible explanation is that their relatively large size gave them an advantage when hunting smaller belemnites of the genus Pachyteuthis that coexisted in the same habitat. After all, modern squids are not at all picky when it comes to choosing their prey: they readily hunt not only other species of cephalopods, but sometimes even those of their own species,” says Alexey Ippolitov, a belemnite expert and member of Victoria University of Wellington.