Paleontologist Discovers "Giant Kraken Lair"

[I.N.producer]

This is relevant.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingsSquishierWithCephalopods

Like Rick Rolling except your trapped all day.

oh no, another tv tropes link, how will I ever escape it?


....with THIS!

http://theglen.livejournal.com/16735.html

You're terrible. Now I have to reread the entire thing. At least TV Tropes only traps you for a day at most.

OT: The article seems like real science trying to get attention by sounding more exciting than it is. The whole self-portrait thing was probably coincidental, like sitting in the sand leaving a "self-portrait" of you. The octopus probably just grabbed the remains of its prey and placed them around itself.

That being said, it's cool that we can say Kraken in relation to science.

 

[jghyers]

*snipped*

Is that a real movie? WHERE CAN I FIND IT!

Netflix has it on streaming!

 

[efAston]

Giant kraken? As opposed to an ordinary-size one?

 

[rayen020]

He studied under Dr Daniel Jackson.

To be fair in that universe Dr. Jackson was right...

Related: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/10/the-giant-prehistoric-squid-that-ate-common-sense.ars

to the people who keep linking this; Awwww, how cute. he thinks only scientific relevancy should dictate what stories are run on the news. And investigative reporting collected from several sources, my my what a novel idea. That the news shouldn't be facilitators of hype. oh, he is just precious.

Listen we once had journalistic integrity, it used to matter. But frankly news doesn't do great in the ratings and by god the channels need viewers to stay there and watch it. So they are going to report a giant F-ing squid. Sorry that the game, 90% percent of americans want there to be a giant squid so maybe the fantasy of our economic, social and political structures actually working might be true too. Or at least it will distract away from those failings for a little while. Is there much evidence? not really. Is this guy a crackpot, most probably. but reporting a crazy guy has a crazy theory with more holes than camp greenlake that'll be debunked soon isn't as attention grabbing as "They found a real life kraken!"
/rant

OT; i think the part about self portrait is farfetched. However a giant octopus? it's not entirely crazy, everything else went supersized back then why not cephalopods? as the article states they're boneless so it'll be hard to prove. can't say yes or no on this, it weird, it's crazy, so if it's not true, not surprised. if it is proven true, awesome.

 

[Jakub324]

Hmmm... I read that expecting more scientists talking out of their arses, but that's actual evidence (as far as I'm concerned)!

 

[Missing SHODAN]

Some of you guys have a seriously under-developed sense of fun.

IT'S A GODDAMN KRAKEN!

It's fun, but that doesn't make it good science. The researchers are leaping to some pretty big conclusions based on what I would be charitably describing as weak evidence.

I mean, the argument boils down to this: There is an unusual pile of bones of Triassic aquatic reptiles, and we know modern octopuses arrange rocks, therefore it's a giant squid.

It just isn't a good argument. You could pretty much fill in any other tangentially related fact in the second sentence and come out with a new conclusion.

There is an unusual pile of bones of Triassic aquatic reptiles, and we know that sometimes areas with water dry up, therefore the creatures were killed by some sort of climate shift.

As a bonus, my argument doesn't involve gargantuan artistic squid (we've no evidence of that level of intelligence in squid, only octopi anyways) that left absolutely no traces of its existence whatsoever besides its artwork. The more outlandish the claim, the better the evidence has to be if you want scientists to take it seriously, and this is a pretty outlandish claim with only the flimsiest of evidence.

When they find a single hook or beak from this giant squid at the site, I'll start taking this story as anything but a huge joke.

 

[Missing SHODAN]

Or to make a claim even more outlandish than theirs, "There is an unusual pile of bones of Triassic aquatic reptiles, and we know that Predators collect groups of animals together to use as birthing vessels for aliens, therefore Aliens Versus Predator was a documentary."

 

[Something Amyss]

He studied under Dr Daniel Jackson.

To be fair in that universe Dr. Jackson was right...

That universe? You mean Stargate wasn't a documentary?

 

[Internet Kraken]

As a bonus, my argument doesn't involve gargantuan artistic squid (we've no evidence of that level of intelligence in squid, only octopi anyways)

To be fair, the article isn't claiming that it was a giant squid but rather a giant octopus. I can see how you would get that confused though since even articles criticizing this are using squid and octopus interchangeably, even though they are two distinct organisms. Even then, I've never heard of an octopus being artistic either. They demonstrate exceptionally high levels of intelligence for invertebrates but I've never heard of them doing anything like drawing pictures. So in addition to being larger than any known octopus species this kraken would also have to be far more intelligent. It's pretty hard to swallow when we don't even have any parts of the creature to prove it existed.

 

[se7ensenses]

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5nq9kGFbfhc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

 

[newwiseman]

Modern Octopus are incredibly intelligent animals, and the ones off the Oregon coast are already pretty damn big. I'm willing to believe that a few hundred million years ago a very large cousin existed. After all there have been huge examples of pretty much every other species of animal on earth in the fossil record, with most of them dying off in the great extinctions due to climate change, and lack of resources.

Considering the amount of time cephalopods have been on earth I'd actually be more surprised if there was never a giant example.

I really hope this Paleontologist finds a massive beak in the dirt.

 

[The Great JT]

Release the kraken! We have found his home, so we have no reason to keep him around anymore!

 

[Dascylus]

"We think that this cephalopod in the Triassic was doing the same thing," McMenamin said. "It was either drowning them or breaking their necks."

I'm just gonna pretend this guy got misquoted. I mean, "drowning a shark"? Come on now.

OT: This is some exciting stuff. Nessie better watch out.

Technically it's suffocation not drowning precisely, but the majority of sharks do require constant water flow over their gills. As for the story I'm seeing little I would expect to pass peer review.

I think he was comparing the modern octopus killing a shark with a triassic one killing icthyosaurs. Icthyosaurs being air-breathing I think it makes more sense that way... But that was just how understood it.

 

[DBLT4P]

"We think that this cephalopod in the Triassic was doing the same thing," McMenamin said. "It was either drowning them or breaking their necks."

I'm just gonna pretend this guy got misquoted. I mean, "drowning a shark"? Come on now.

OT: This is some exciting stuff. Nessie better watch out.

you can easily drown a shark, or at least most of them, by keeping them from swimming. unlike boney fish most sharks lack the musculature to actively pump water over their gills, and so must always maintain forward movement, relative to the gills, to passively move water over them. if the flow of water is halted the gills will extract the oxygen from the water surrounding them, but with no way to expel the deoxygenated water and introduce fresh oxygen rich water the shark will suffocate.
Although i guess technically "drowning" is impossible because sharks have no lungs to fill with water, so they cant drown in the medical sense...

 

[Internet Kraken]

Modern Octopus are incredibly intelligent animals, and the ones off the Oregon coast are already pretty damn big. I'm willing to believe that a few hundred million years ago a very large cousin existed. After all there have been huge examples of pretty much every other species of animal on earth in the fossil record, with most of them dying off in the great extinctions due to climate change, and lack of resources.

Considering the amount of time cephalopods have been on earth I'd actually be more surprised if there was never a giant example.

I really hope this Paleontologist finds a massive beak in the dirt.

Octopus are very intelligent, especially as far as invertebrates go, but I've still never heard of any octopus demonstrating artistic ability. They're very good at problem solving and are capable of using tools, but there's a big difference between that and having the vanity to make a self-portrait.

 

[Lamnidae]

We will see what the owner of Virgin finds out when he explores the Mariana Trench soon... Hope he has enough cameras on board! Anyway, it's not a Kraken it's Orthoceren (or -ceras)...

 

[blindthrall]

To which I would say you have an underdeveloped sense of bullshit.

To which I would say, you are at the top of the list.

Look, I really want this to be true. The idea of anything that preyed on Shinosaur, let alone a giant octopus, is far beyond awesome. But if this thing did exist, do you know how hard it is that anybody would believe it now that this guy cried wolf? MOST scientists are loath to attach themselves to anything that could be wrong, especially something the scientific community has already laughed at. The paleontologist that announced this has taken the somewhat implausible yet interesting idea of an ancient enormous cephalopod and stripped it of any credibility with his self-portrait inanity. Very few animals can recognize their own image in a mirror, let alone reproduce it.

 

[Andy Chalk]

It's fun.

Precisely, and that's where the conversation stops. We're a gaming site that serves up a healthy side order of assorted other nerdy shit. If you're after hard, peer-reviewed science, maybe you should look elsewhere, because we're here to RELEASE THE KRAKEN OF FUN!

That's right, I said it.

 

[shadyh8er]

"We think that this cephalopod in the Triassic was doing the same thing," McMenamin said. "It was either drowning them or breaking their necks."

I'm just gonna pretend this guy got misquoted. I mean, "drowning a shark"? Come on now.

OT: This is some exciting stuff. Nessie better watch out.

you can easily drown a shark, or at least most of them, by keeping them from swimming. unlike boney fish most sharks lack the musculature to actively pump water over their gills, and so must always maintain forward movement, relative to the gills, to passively move water over them. if the flow of water is halted the gills will extract the oxygen from the water surrounding them, but with no way to expel the deoxygenated water and introduce fresh oxygen rich water the shark will suffocate.
Although i guess technically "drowning" is impossible because sharks have no lungs to fill with water, so they cant drown in the medical sense...

Yeah it's really underwater suffocation. But oh well, drowning is fine.

 

[Angus565]

Ancient cephalapods!
Snapping necks and kraken skulls.