卡车大小的章鱼曾游弋在白垩纪海洋中

These giants may have rivaled marine reptiles as apex predators PHIE JACOBS T ales of sea monsters with tentacles big enough to drown ships have long haunted sail- ors’ nightmares. Those krak- ens were fantasy, but a study published today on p. 406 suggests creatures approaching such mythic proportions prowled Earth’s oceans during the Cre- taceous period, back when dinosaurs ruled the land. Scientists had thought sharks and giant marine reptiles dominated ocean food chains during this era, which ended roughly 66 million years ago. “When you think of the Cretaceous, you immediately think of mosasaurs and plesiosaurs,” says Neil Landman, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution’s American Museum of Natural History who wasn’t involved in the study. …