Scientists named a recently discovered 330 million-year-old multi-tentacled fossil of an octopus ancestor after President Joe Biden, calling it Syllipsimopodi Bideni.
After paleontologists unearthed the fossil in Montana’s Bear Gulch Limestone formation in 1988, they donated it to Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum. Decades later, American Museum of Natural History paleontologist Christopher Whalen discovered the fossil sitting in a drawer undisturbed on Tuesday. Whalen discovered that the fossil’s preserved arms were covered in tiny suckers upon inspection.
“It’s very rare to find soft tissue fossils, except in a few places. This is a very exciting finding. It pushes back the ancestry much farther than previously known,” said Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History zoologist Mike Vecchione.
The fossil is the oldest known vampyropod, a likely ancestor of modern-day octopuses and vampire squids. The fossil is 4.7 inches and has ten limbs, two more than modern octopuses. Before its discovery, the oldest vampyropod was previously thought to be around 240 million-years-old.
Syllipsimopodi Bideni’s discovery means octopuses were around before the era of dinosaurs, according to the Guardian.
The scientists reportedly named the newfound species after Biden because they “were encouraged by his plans to address climate change and to fund scientific research.”