Scientists have named the fossil of the vampire squid after US President Joe Biden. The New York Times, citing Christopher Whelan, reported that a fossil about 328 million years old, discovered in the US state of Montana, was donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada in 1988 and then kept in a drawer there for a long time. A paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Whelan is quoted as saying that, along with his colleague Neil Landman, Whelan named the fossil “Silipsimopody bideni” in memory of Biden’s presidency and “because he was impressed by his plans to address climate change and advance scientific research.” was encouraged by.” Animal species are also named after past US presidents such as Donald Trump or Barack Obama.

According to his own statements, scientist Whelan accidentally came across the fossil at the museum in Canada, examined it more closely – and noticed that the animal also had suction cups on its ten arms. The fossil belongs to a previously unknown species—the oldest in the group of animals that includes the octopus and vampire squid, Whelan and Landmann argued in an article in the scientific journal Nature Communications.