Yasuhiro Iba<\/a>, a paleontologist at Hokkaido University in Japan and an author of the new paper. He thinks these octopuses used their massive size, flexible arms, and powerful bites to achieve apex predator status in the ancient ocean.<\/p>\nA bevy of beaks\u00a0<\/h2>\n
The new findings provide evolutionary insights into a group of animals that left few fossils behind. These soft-bodied critters lost their protective shells hundreds of millions of years ago and largely lack any other hard parts that easily fossilize.<\/p>\n
However, ancient octopuses did leave one telltale trace in the fossil record: their parrot-like beaks. These structures are composed primarily of chitin, the same material that forms the exoskeletons of insects and crustaceans. In living species, the size of an octopus\u2019s beak is often indicative of the rest of the animal\u2019s dimensions, allowing paleontologists to reconstruct the size of an ancient cephalopod based only on the beak it left behind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n