In Nevada, Proof of the Kraken?

Paleontologist: ichthyosaur fossils could indicate existence of sea monster
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 11, 2011 11:40 AM CDT
In Nevada, Proof of the Kraken?
The colossal octopus.   (Wikimedia Commons)

Sasquatch should be really nervous right now... First, Siberian officials announced they had proof that Yeti exists. Now a Massachusetts paleontologist says he has indirect evidence that the fearsome kraken once roamed the seas. At the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, Mark McMenamin yesterday posited that the 100-foot-long mythological sea monster was soft-bodied, which would explain the absence of bones and other fossil evidence. But he believes that the bones of nine ichthyosaurs at the Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada point to the kraken's existence, reports LiveScience.

The markings on the bones of the 45-foot ichthyosaurs at the park, along with the larger than expected number of broken ribs and the bones' "very odd configuration," led McMenamin to believe that the ichthyosaurs had likely been killed then carried to a single lair, likely by an octopus-type creature that had either drowned them or twisted their necks. Science Daily also reports that McMenamin observed that the fossils' vertebrae seem to be arranged in a way that mimics the pattern of the sucker discs on a cephalopod tentacle. LiveScience notes that plenty of people are calling his circumstantial evidence hooey. Click to read one such reaction, a Wired piece titled "The Giant, Prehistoric Squid That Ate Common Sense." (More sea monster stories.)

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