Recently, five octopus fossils were discovered in Lebanon. Supposedly 95 million years old, these fossils are remarkably well preserved, including all eight tentacles, and even evidence of suckers and traces of ink!
It’s surprising that the octopuses even became fossils. Since an octopus doesn’t have any hard parts, other than the beak, its body decomposes very quickly into a mushy blob and is gone in a matter of days.
According to evolutionary theory, in order to become fossilized, an octopus would have to sink to the ocean floor, and slowly become buried by sediment, all without decomposing, or being eaten by scavengers or bacteria. That scenario isn’t likely. In fact, even Charles Darwin, in his uniformitarian thinking, wrote, “No organism wholly soft can be preserved” (The Origin of Species, first published 1859, quote taken from p. 422 of the 6th Edition, 1872, reprinted 1902).
In order for this creature to become a fossil, it had to be buried very rapidly. Something catastrophic would have had to happen to make an octopus quickly sink to the ocean floor and be buried before any decomposition could take place, much less be eaten by another animal for dinner!
