Palaeoctopus Explained

Palaeoctopus is an extinct genus of octopuses that lived during the Late Cretaceous. It contains one valid species, P. newboldi, which has been found in Lebanon.

Taxonomy

Calais newboldi was named by Henry B. Woodward in 1896 for a nearly-complete specimen from the Sahel Alma lagerstätte of Lebanon. However, that genus name was preoccupied by the beetle Calais. Woodward named Palaeoctopus as a replacement later the same year. Embrik Strand proposed the alternate replacement name Calaita in 1928.

Beloteuthis libanotica was named by Adolf Naef in 1922 for a supposed teudopsid gladius from Sahel Alma. It was moved to a new genus, Parateudopsis, by Theo Engeser and Joachim Reitner in 1986. The specimen was eventually reidentified as an isolated gladius vestige of P. newboldi.^[1]

A second species, P. pelagicus, was named by Dirk Fuchs and colleagues in 2008 for an alleged gladius vestige from the Vallecillo lagerstätte of Mexico.^[2] It was subsequently revealed to be a gular plate from a coelacanth, possibly a juvenile Megalocoelacanthus.^[3]

Notes and References

1. Fuchs . D. . 2010 . A rare and unusual teudopseid coleoid from the Upper Cretaceous of Hâqel (Lebanon) . Ferrantia . 59 . 61–72 .
2. Fuchs . D. . Ifrim . C. . Stinnesbeck . W. . 2008 . A new Palaeoctopus (Cephalopoda: Coleoidea) from the Late Cretaceous of Vallecillo, north-eastern Mexico, and implications for the evolution of Octopoda . Palaeontology . 51 . 5 . 1129–1139 . 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00797.x . 2008Palgy..51.1129F . free .
3. Schultze . H.-P. . Fuchs . D. . Giersch . S. . Ifrim . C. . Stinnesbeck . W. . 2010 . Palaeoctopus pelagicus from the Turonian of Mexico reinterpreted as a coelacanth (sarcopterygian) gular plate . Palaeontology . 53 . 3 . 689–694 . 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2010.00943.x . 2010Palgy..53..689S . free .