A belemnite fossil with an unusually broad rear structure has helped researchers identify a squid-like animal from 160 million years ago. The species (Wyoteuthis linsterorum) belonged to a family that paleontologists thought had disappeared millions of years earlier. An international team, including researchers at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, describes the animal in Papers in Palaeontology. Two specimens underpin the finding: their distinctive proportions reveal a previously unrecognized survivor in Wyoming’s Jurassic sea. [1, 2]
Belemnite Fossil: What Survived?
Belemnites were prehistoric cephalopods, members of the broad animal group that includes living squid and octopuses. Their fossils often preserve a rostrum (a bullet-shaped structure), the part behind the playful “squid butt” nickname in coverage of this discovery. Paleontologists have collected these distinctive remains around the world for more than two centuries. The preserved structure is only part of the animal, so its dimensions and the estimated size of the complete creature describe different things. [2]
Wyoming’s Sundance Formation supplied the setting. An inland sea covered this area during the distant past, leaving marine fossils in a landscape where collectors now search on land. Most local belemnite examples measure around two to four inches long and less than an inch wide, according to Andrew Paul’s report for Popular Science. Against that familiar background, a specimen with a similar length but a width of about 2.4 inches posed an identification problem.
The difference was width. Researchers eventually connected that unusually thick belemnite fossil with a second specimen, giving them two examples to investigate together.
Why Did Identification Take Decades?
Burkhard Pohl, founder of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, found the first specimen roughly 30 years ago. Bill Wahl, a co-author of the new study, recalled that it “stuck out like a sore thumb.” Yet an unusual appearance alone did not give researchers a comparable animal with which to resolve its identity. The fossil stayed in storage for nearly three decades, while the familiar, slimmer belemnites provided an imperfect point of comparison. [2]
Cliff Linster changed the situation in 2019. The fossil collector found another similar cephalopod near Ten Sleep, Wyoming, and donated it to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, bringing a second example within reach of the researchers studying the older find. A second specimen supplied the missing comparison. The team could now examine the pair as a possible shared form instead of continuing to puzzle over a solitary, unusually broad fossil.
Jessica Lippincott, a paleontologist and study co-author, emphasized how unfamiliar the animal looked despite her experience collecting the common local genus Pachyteuthis. Her field experience helps explain why the find attracted attention: collectors already knew many belemnites from Wyoming, yet these remains differed conspicuously from that familiar material. What could an examination of their interior add?
What Did the Scans Establish?
The research team used computed tomography (CT scanning) to inspect the specimens without damaging them. Popular Science reports that the analysis supported their identification as previously unknown belemnites and placed them in a family thought to have vanished earlier. The scans helped resolve identity and affinity. Paul’s account does not describe the individual internal features behind that assessment, so it cannot support a detailed reconstruction of the team’s anatomical comparisons. [2]
Alexey P. Ippolitov, Jessica L. Lippincott, William R. Wahl and Dean R. Lomax authored the paper, titled “‘The big chunky belemnite’: a new relict megateuthidid from the Oxfordian (Late Jurassic) of Wyoming, USA, and its place in the evolutionary history of the group.” The title identifies the family as Megateuthididae and places the animal in the Oxfordian, a subdivision of the Late Jurassic. The journal citation locates the study in volume 12, issue 5 of Papers in Palaeontology. Together, those details give the discovery a specific geological and evolutionary setting beyond the broad description of a very chunky squid relative. [1]
The fossils preserve anatomical evidence. The study’s proposed explanation for the animal’s bulk concerns behavior, which requires a separate line of reasoning.
How Large Was the Animal?
Researchers estimated that the complete animal probably approached two feet in length, using the preserved rostrum and their understanding of belemnite proportions. The full body length is an estimate. Popular Science describes the fossil structure’s width as about 2.4 inches; it does not report a complete, two-foot body preserved from end to end. Keeping the measured remnant distinct from the reconstructed animal prevents an appealing size comparison from becoming a stronger claim than the evidence supports. [2]
The ordinary Wyoming specimens provide the useful comparison here: their reported lengths overlap the unusual specimen’s length, while their widths remain below one inch, making the new animal’s breadth especially conspicuous. How should “chunky” translate into anatomy? In this account, it refers to unusually thick proportions. The available reporting does not give a body mass, and a broad fossil structure alone cannot supply a measured weight.
Paleontologists also distinguish an animal’s size from its age. The reported 160-million-year age places this species in deep time; it says nothing about how long an individual lived. PerEXP Teamworks’ coverage of the dating of Archaeopteryx fossils addresses the related task of placing fossil organisms within geological history.
Did Bulk Help It Hunt?
Ippolitov, identified in Popular Science as a paleontologist now at New Zealand’s Victoria University, proposes that large size could have helped the animal hunt smaller belemnites living in the same sea. He specifically points to Pachyteuthis. Living squid offer a possible comparison: they eat other cephalopods and sometimes members of their own species. The proposed hunting advantage remains a hypothesis, based on a plausible relationship between size, available prey and behavior in living relatives. [2]
Modern squid provide the analogy. They cannot establish which prey these two Jurassic individuals consumed, or demonstrate that cannibalism occurred in the newly named species. The available report describes no preserved meal associated with either specimen. Researchers’ dietary suggestion concerns what the animal might have been equipped to do; the fossil identification rests on their examination of its remains.
PerEXP Teamworks’ report on a leg bone inside a tyrannosaur’s belly concerns a different kind of dietary evidence. In the Wyoming belemnite study, the question is whether bulk conferred an advantage against smaller cephalopods. A fossil preserving identifiable prey would address feeding more directly than a comparison with modern squid.
Why Does This Survivor Matter?
The researchers place Wyoteuthis linsterorum in a family previously thought extinct millions of years before this animal lived. The identification extends the family’s known survival. It does not mean an extinct group returned; it means the fossils support a later occurrence than researchers had previously recognized. The belemnite fossil consequently matters for the timing of the group’s history as well as for its unusual shape. [1, 2]
Linster’s contribution also survives in the species name. He died in June 2026, before the dedication appeared, although Popular Science reports that he knew the team was working to describe the animal he had helped discover. Pohl’s earlier find and Linster’s donation show how specimens collected decades apart can become useful together when researchers finally have material suitable for comparison. [2]
Future finds could help researchers assess how much these proportions varied and whether the proposed prey relationship has direct fossil support. The present account rests on two specimens. Neither the frequency of this animal in the Sundance sea nor the reason for its bulk follows from that small sample alone.
- ACADEMIC JOURNAL Ippolitov, A. P., Lippincott, J. L., Wahl, W. R., & Lomax, D. R. (2026). ‘The big chunky belemnite’: A new relict megateuthidid from the Oxfordian (Late Jurassic) of Wyoming, USA, and its place in the evolutionary history of the group. Papers in Palaeontology, 12(5). https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.70123 [Article Link]
- ONLINE NEWS Paul, A. (2026, September 10). ‘Squid butt’ fossil belongs to one of the ‘chunkiest’ cephalopods ever discovered. Popular Science. [Article Link]
APA 7: TWs Editor. (2026, September 11). A chunky belemnite fossil reveals a Jurassic survivor. PerEXP Teamworks.
