Keuppia levante

Late Cretaceous

Metoicoceras geslinianum Zone

Hadjoula, Lebanon.

Huge, extremely rare 260mm true octopus on big 270mm slab.

Cephalopod.

Keuppia is an extinct genus of octopus.  It’s also one of the earliest-known in the fossil record and yet it is already quite similar to modern forms.  Features such as the suckers and ink sac have been identified in the few known specimens.

Octopus fossils are quite rare in the fossil record.  Their almost completely soft-bodied anatomy is preserved only in the finest grained sediments of the last 95 million or so years.