Long before the appearance of whales, the oceans belonged to ichthyosaurs: they were at the top of the Triassic food chain. At least this is the accepted or accepted belief
The vertebral discs of ichthyosaurs are arranged very strangely and very much resemble the pattern of suckers on the tentacles of octopuses
Mark McMenamin, a paleontologist from Mount Holyoke College, claims to have found evidence of a larger, more cunning creature that hunted ichthyosaurs.
Mr. McMenamin studied the remains of nine 14-meter Shonisaurus popularis located in the Berlin Ichthyosaurus Park, Nevada. They are so strange that scientists have been puzzling over them since the middle of the last century. One of the main experts on these fossils, Charles Lewis Camp, believed at one time that ichthyosaurs found death by accidentally stranded. However, no one was able to prove that they died in shallow water. On the contrary, a study of the surrounding rocks showed that it was quite deep in this place.
The strangeness lies in the configuration of the bones. It is as if purposefully changed. Who could do this? Mr. McMenamin recalls modern octopuses, who build their homes from improvised material. Here is what Jacques-Yves Cousteau wrote about this: “On the flat bottom of the shallows, we found bizarre buildings, clearly built by the octopuses themselves. The typical structure had a roof in the form of a flat stone half a meter long and weighing about eight kilograms.
On one side, the stone of the roof towered 20 centimeters above the ground, supported by another stone and fragments of building bricks. In front of the canopy, a large rampart stretched out of all kinds of construction debris, crab shells, oyster shells, clay shards, stones, as well as sea anemones and hedgehogs. A long arm protruded from the dwelling, and the owl's eyes of an octopus looked directly at me over the shaft. As soon as I got close, a hand moved and moved the entire barrier to the entrance hole. The door closed."
Mr. McMenamin hypothesizes that similarly intelligent creatures lived in the seas of the Triassic. He draws attention to the fact that some vertebral discs of ichthyosaurs practically fold in a double line - they could hardly have arranged themselves like that.
Further - more: the arrangement of the vertebrae resembles the distribution of the suckers on the tentacles of the cephalopods, as if some "kraken" was trying to write a self-portrait.
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Several years ago, employees of the Seattle Aquarium (USA) recorded on camera how an octopus killed a shark (see video below). Why not assume that something similar happened in the Triassic? Indeed, among the remains of Shonisaurus popularis there are too many broken ribs and necks to write off as chance.
Alas, octopuses are generally soft and poorly preserved, so proving their "crime" will not be easy. Mr. McMenamin is about to face healthy skepticism.