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Mythology's kraken has made modern-day appearances in movies such as Clash of the Titans and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Paleontologist Mark McMenamin studied fossilized remains in Nevada. They were not of the kraken that is rumored to have been similar to the octopus; soft-bodied without the capability leave good fossil remains. (Only evidence of hard beaks usually remains after thousands of years.) The fossils studied by McMenamin were of the snaggle-toothed ichthyosaurs. These were ocean-dwellers from the Triassic Period and were larger than school busses.
The remains of the ichthyosaurs in Nevada are curiously grouped together. There are nine of them, 45-feet long, and they are neatly arranged as if left there by something bigger. Etching on the bones rules out a one-time mass death; many appear to have had their ribs and necks broken. The vertebrae are arranged as if left by sucker discs from a cephalopod tentacle.
This leads scientists to ask: what killed these large animals? In the 1950s Charles Camp thought the deaths were caused by toxic plankton or accidental stranding in shallow water. (Recent studies have shown that the area was a deep water environment.)
The condition of the fossilized ichthyosaurs suggests an attack. Because of the lack of fossilized evidence of a predator, however, their death remains a mystery. McMenamin suggests that an octopus-like creature (which would leave little fossilized evidence) could have been the killer. The mythological kraken was rumored to have been 40-50-feet long. The Giant Pacific octopus, the largest known octopus, is 14-30-feet long.
There is video evidence of octopi killing sharks. While McMenamin's suggestion of a Triassic Period kraken remains a hypothesis, who knows - maybe there really was a king-sized squid swimming the seas!
Resources:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111010075530.htm
https://www.rgj.com/article/20111015/NEWS07/110160362/Unleash-kraken-Scientist-says-Nevada-ichthyosaur-fossils-might-remains-sea-monster-s-lunch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteroctopus_dofleini
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Colossal_octopus_by_Pierre_Denys_de_Montfort.jpg [image]
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Re: Maybe the Kraken Was Real!
