Rare 'Chunkiest' Jurassic Squid Species Discovered in Wyoming Fossils

In the late 1990s, a paleontologist named Burkhard Pohl was working through fossils in Wyoming when he noticed something that didn't fit. Among the millions of bullet-shaped belemnite remains that litter the Sundance Formation—an ancient inland sea that once covered the western United States—he found one that was far too thick, far too broad. It looked wrong. He set it aside, and for nearly three decades it sat in a drawer at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, unstudied and unidentified.

Belemnites are the fossilized remains of squid-like cephalopods that lived in the oceans 160 million years ago. They are among the most abundant fossils on Earth, recognized by their distinctive bullet shape—a hard internal structure called a rostrum or guard that tapers to a point. Wyoming's Sundance Formation has yielded millions of them. Local fossil hunters have a nickname for them: squid butts. Most specimens measure between five and ten centimeters long and only one to two centimeters wide. They are, by and large, unremarkable.

Then, in 2019, a fossil collector named Cliff Linster found a second specimen near Ten Sleep, Wyoming, and donated it to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. This one was different too—barrel-shaped, unusually thick. Together, the two fossils were unusual enough to warrant serious investigation. An international team of researchers, including paleontologists from the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, began examining them using computed tomography scanning. The CT imaging allowed them to study the internal structure without damaging the fossils, revealing details that had been hidden for millions of years.

What they discovered was startling. The new species, formally named Wyoteuthis linsterorum, belonged to an ancient family of belemnites that scientists had believed went extinct millions of years before these specimens were even fossilized. The barrel-shaped skeleton was unlike anything previously recorded—roughly ten centimeters long but six centimeters wide, making it the thickest belemnite ever found. Researchers estimate the living animal would have reached about sixty centimeters in total length, including its arms. It was, in the words of the research team, the chunkiest belemnite ever discovered.

Alexey Ippolitov, a belemnite expert now at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, described himself as deeply surprised by the find. After more than two centuries of paleontological study on belemnites, he noted, discoveries of this magnitude remain exceptionally rare. One possible explanation for the animal's unusual size and shape involves predation. Modern squid are not selective hunters—they readily consume other cephalopod species and even their own kind. The larger size of Wyoteuthis linsterorum may have given it an advantage when hunting the smaller belemnites, particularly those of the genus Pachyteuthis, that shared its environment.

The species name, linsterorum, honors Cliff Linster and his family. Linster was no stranger to significant fossil discoveries; his family had previously found Bambiraptor, a notable dinosaur species. He knew that researchers were studying his remarkable belemnite and was excited to see it formally described. Tragically, Linster passed away in June 2024, before the study was published in the journal Papers in Palaeontology. Dean Lomax, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester and one of the paper's co-authors, had worked with Linster and his wife, Sandy, years earlier. Lomax recalled meeting them in 2009 while excavating a dinosaur bonebed on their property in northern Montana, listening to Cliff speak about his passion for fossils. The formal naming of the species after Linster serves as a permanent record of his contribution to paleontology.

Both specimens are now on display at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, Wyoming. The discovery underscores a simple but profound truth: even in fossil groups that have been studied intensively for generations, new species remain hidden in museum drawers and in the ground, waiting for the right combination of curiosity, expertise, and chance to bring them to light. The find suggests that paleontologists should continue examining well-known fossil collections with fresh eyes, and that amateur collectors and rockhounds—people who hunt invertebrate fossils for the simple pleasure of discovery—can still make contributions that reshape scientific understanding.