95M-Year-Old Octopus Fossils Discovered

mmmscience writes "A new study published in Paleontology is a truly terrific find. Not only did a group of European scientists find a fossilized octopus, they found five complete fossils that show all eight legs in great detail, including a ghost of the characteristic suckers. The discovery of the 95-million-year-old specimens was made in Lebanon. 'What is truly astonishing to the scientists is how similar these ancient creatures are to their modern-day counterparts. Dirk Fuchs, lead author on the study stated, "These things are 95 million years old, yet one of the fossils is almost indistinguishable from living species."'"

Comments

Lack of fossils

[Haoie]

Normally for animal life, anything that doesn't either have bones or some kind of shell won't leave a fossil. Nothing to calcify.

They can leave mud impressions though, which a lot of plants also leave.

Phenotype!=genotype

[Taibhsear]

Just because their outward appearance hasn't changed in millions of years doesn't mean they have not evolved. Heat shock proteins, enzymes, internal organs, nerve systems, skin coloration, mating habits, immune cells, surface proteins, antibodies, etc. These are all things that may have changed through evolution that you might not notice by analyzing fossils. To say that these creatures have not evolved over millions of years is rather naive or ignorant.

Re:Phenotype!=genotype

[turing_m]

IANAB but it seems unlikely that all of these internal things would be changing while the outside stays practically identical. Someone correct me!

Sensory and intelligence apparatus can change a great deal while a creature superficially remains the same. There may be others (e.g. efficiency), but those are the ones I immediately think of. I suspect those things are harder to get right, so they take longer for natural selection to do its thing.

Consider a mould of Isaac Newton versus early man. Newton's head was a bit bigger and his body a bit weedier, but all in all, pretty similar. Or perhaps more to the point, consider a WWII or 1950s submarine versus the latest iterations of US submarines, or an F-22A versus an F-15 or F-18. Superficially they are very similar, because an object that spends all its time in a fluid will need to be designed (or will converge on a "design" through natural selection) to move efficiently in that fluid.

However, the power plant, avionics, stealthiness of later iterations of military vehicles are going to outclass earlier vehicles by a huge degree. Pitted head to head, the former submarines and aircraft will only be capable of lucky kills. Getting back to the example of the octopus, we have no way of knowing whether the earlier version of octopus could change color at will, spurt ink, or figure out how to get food out of a bottle with a cork in the top.

Re:How does evolution detract from God?

[virtue3]

I spent years trying to figure out this whole "fundie" mentality of religion myself. I think it just really stems from who is teaching and who is learning. I learned everything about Christianity and God from my grandmother (Wiccan/Catholic nun) and the jesuits at my private school in highschool. It's... very very different from everything else I've heard of.

I mean, in all seriousness, my Bible study teacher flat out said that the reason there is a creation myth in the Bible is because all the other religions had one as well. However, he did ad, that if you don't take it too literally it can work with our current understanding. None of my teachers ever once even hinted that science and religion could not get along nor go hand in hand.

Topics like Abortion were always met with a very hard handed "evil", however, well, aside from my Grandmother, who very strongly believes that no one has the right to tell a woman what she can and can't do with her body (and that ultimately it is between her and God and no one else) and I very strongly agree with her.

Re:Retract the pods! Prepare to jump.

[Darby]

If the Bible is so clear and complete on geologic history, shouldn't we be able to at least get the hundreds place pinned down too?

It was actually pinned down to the exact day:

James Ussher (sometimes spelled Usher) (4 January 1581-21 March 1656) was Anglican Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625-1656. He was a prolific scholar, who most famously published a chronology that purported to time and date creation to the night preceding 27 October 4004 BC, according to the proleptic Julian calendar.

From here.