JAKARTA – Analyst mention vampire squid has been hiding in the dark parts of the ocean for 30 million years. It was revealed afterwards fossil rediscovered after a long disappearance. Also read: 66 Million Years Old Fossil Fish Found in Morocco
Modern-day vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis) can breed in oxygen-poor deep sea waters. This is unlike many other squid species which require shallow habitat along the continental shelf.
Several fossils of the ancestors of the vampire squid are still alive. So scientists aren’t sure when cephalopoda this elusive develops the ability to live on very little oxygen.
Analysis of the new fossils helps fill a 120 million year gap in the evolution of vampire squid, revealing that the ancestors of modern-day vampire squid lived in the deep oceans during the Oligocene. To be precise 23 million to 34 million years ago.
“These squids probably evolved to adapt to low-oxygen water during the Jurassic,” said study co-author Martin Kosak, a paleontologist at Charles University, Prague.
Researchers recovered from a 30-year-old vampire squid fossil. Photo / Martin Kosa / Live Science
“Life in a stable low oxygen level brings evolutionary advantages – lower predation pressure and less competition,” he wrote in email to Live Science.
Fossil Rediscovered
Kosak and his colleagues found the long-lost fossil in the collection of the Hungarian Museum of Natural History in 2019 while searching for fossils of a cuttlefish ancestor. The fossil was originally discovered in 1942 by Hungarian paleontologist Miklos Kretzoi, who identified it as a squid about 30 million years old and named it Necroteuthis hungarica.
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