328 Million-Year-Old Vampire Squid Ancestor Named After Biden 'As A Compliment' | HuffPost Impact - Action News
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Posted: 2022-03-23T20:08:43Z | Updated: 2022-03-23T20:08:43Z

President Joe Biden has a new namesake: an ancient, soft-bodied cephalopod that had 10 suction-cupped arms and was likely the ancestor of the modern octopus and vampire squid.

The 328-million-year-old fossil, named Syllipsimopodi bideni (Syllipsimopodi means prehensile foot ), was described in a paper published in Nature Communications earlier this month.

The fossil was first found in Montana in 1988 and donated to Canadas Royal Ontario Museum. It was then more or less ignored until Christopher Whalen, a paleontologist with the American Museum of Natural History, started looking at it under a microscope, The New York Times reported .

The fossil turned out to be an exceptionally well-preserved vampyropod, Whalen and fellow AMNH paleontologist Neil Landman wrote in their paper. Vampyropods include octopuses and vampire squid (which are not actually squid ).

Scientists believe that Syllipsimopodi bideni is the oldest known ancestor of such animals.