The Kraken, a mythological sea creature resembling a giant squid (only more giant) was thought of as merely a product of sea-farer folklore and fairy tales, surely there couldn’t exist a sea creature as ridiculously gargantuan as those spoken of by swarthy sea dogs and their old wive’s tales, could there? According to Holyoke College paleontologist Mark McMenamin, that may very well be the case.

In a recent Geological Society of America press release, McMenamin tells of his time spent last summer at the Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada where he had been studying the remains of nine 45-foot ichthyosaurs One of the first things that McMenamin noted when he got to look at the remains were abnormalities in their arrangement. He specifically says “It became very clear that something very odd was going on there, It was a very odd configuration of bones.” McMenamin had noticed that the bones had seemed to have a consistent pattern of arrangement and he goes on to remark that “Modern Octopus will do this”, the only problem with the theory of an octopus being the inconsistency of size that a modern octopus would create with the specimens being studied. These were the bones of a 45 foot ichthyosaur after all, that had been arranged into “curious linear patterns with almost geometric regularity”, only a creature much greater in size than these already fairly large ichthyosaurs could have pulled off such a feat; namely McMenamin’s newly proposed, highly intelligent invertebrate: the Triassic Kraken.

Further evidencing this mythological creature’s true existence, McMenamin explains that the vertebrae of the bones that had been arranged were done so in a manner that greatly resembled the sucker discs on the tentacle of an octopus or squid (cephalopod). Even more amazing is the simple fact that a squid was even able to kill such a vicious predator as an ichthyosaur, but one need only look to the supposed peaceful modern octopus for examples of how ferocious that cephalopods can really be. The bones showed evidence of a cracked rib or broken neck as the probable cause of death for the ichthyosaurs which would conform perfectly with the preferred killing methods of octopi and the like.

The last thing which characterizes these aquatic deviants as true criminals of the sea is their ability to cover their tracks until this very day. The bodies of the proposed cephalopod would have been made up of soft tissue which would not have fossilized in such a way that we could identify any true remains of the Triassic Kraken, which makes certain scientists in this field somewhat skeptical of this proposal, but McMenamin remains confident in his findings.

I personally find it amazing that such a large creature of mythological proportions could remain completely undetected to scientists until now, but what do you guys think? Is the Kraken real? Or is it anther Myth? A certain Captain Sparrow of the Carribean had informed me that he really hopes for the latter.