Would You be Scared of this Giant Octopus?

Generally octopuses don't fossilise - they are essentially bags of water. But their beaks are preserved and someone has found some big ones in Cretaceous rocks. And using present day beak sizes and octopus sizes has come to the conclusion that their beaks belonged to an octopus 7 to 19 metres in length!

Cretaceous marine predators (at maximum estimated size) with a scuba diver for scale. Credit: After Ikegami et al. Fig. 4, and Jacobs 2026.

Was the octopus a top predator or was it an extra large food source for a Mosasaurus? It is certainly a very good focus for speculation. Proving anything might be a difficult task.

You can read all about it HERE, based on THIS PAPER