Meet Cliff Linster, whose Jurassic “squid” sat 30 years before being named a new species

PC: University of Manchester For nearly 30 years, an unusually chunky Jurassic fossil lay waiting to reveal what it was. Fossil collector Cliff Linster discovered one of only two known specimens in Wyoming, and his find was donated to the Wyoming Dinosaur Centre in 2019. Scientists have now identified it as Wyoteuthis linsterorum, a previously unknown species of belemnite dating to around 160 million years. Unlike the familiar bullet-shaped fossils commonly found in Wyoming, this ancient squid relative had a remarkably broad, barrel-shaped rostrum, earning it the description of the “chunkiest” belemnite ever found. The discovery also revealed a rare surviving branch of an ancient lineage.What did Cliff Linster’s Wyoming fossil reveal about a Jurassic “squid”According to the study published in Wiley, 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 specimen was found in situ in Bighorn County, about six miles south of Hyattville, in a sandstone layer containing smaller belemnites and Camptonectes shells. It came from the upper part of the Redwater Shale, wit...