Fall 2009 » Research Briefs » Shell-Shock: Students Find World-Record Fossil

Shell-Shock: Students Find World-Record Fossil

March, 2009

On Jan. 20, three undergraduate geology students made a discovery that would have left Captain Nemo quaking in his boots: the fossilized shell of a prehistoric squid-like creature of gigantic proportions. Measuring eight feet in length, their find represents the longest actinoceratoid nautiloid fossil in the world.

Freshman Sarah Kee and senior Kevin Morgan discovered the fossil in a drainage ditch beside two of Fayetteville's busiest roads. As the unusual size of the fossil became apparent, the two called junior Jonathan Gillip to help with excavation and notified their adviser, geology professor Walter Manger.

Manger was initially skeptical, knowing of only one other nautiloid fossil of such tremendous size o a seven-foot, two-inch specimen also discovered in Fayetteville in 1963. Belonging to the extinct species Rayonnoceras solidiforme, both creatures would have lived about 325 million years ago, when much of the southern United States lay submerged beneath a shallow sea.

Most examples of their species grew no more than three to four feet in length, but researchers estimate the creature discovered by Kee, Morgan and Gillip would have spanned more than 20 feet while alive, with 10 to 15 feet of tentacles stretching from its 9 to 10-foot shell.

This specimen represents what Manger calls a pathological giant. Its discovery lends credence to a theory Manger first proposed to the scientific community in 1999 o that these nautiloids exhibited semalparous reproductive behavior. Like modern-day squid, these creatures would have mated and laid eggs within three to four years and then died.

Manger suggests that the giant specimens may have been rendered reproductively sterile by parasitic trematodes. Unable to reproduce, they could have lived for decades, diverting their energy to growth.

"The new fossil will definitely bolster that theory. When you only have one example to go on, you wonder. But the students have given us another example that fits perfectly with the hypothesis," Manger said.