The oldest sepioid cephalopod from the Cretaceous discovered by Digital fossil-mining with zero-shot learning AI
Joint press release (in Japanese) by Hokkaido University, MORGENROT, Osaka Metropolitan University, Chuo University and Niigata University
Abstract
Sepioids are an evolutionarily successful group of modern ten-armed cephalopods (Decabrachia) of high biodiversity, providing a large amount of biomass in present-day oceans. They include the internally shelled order Sepiida (cuttlefish) and the soft-bodied order Sepiolida (bobtail squid). The phylogenetic position and evolutionary history of these orders are, however, so far poorly understood due to the patchy fossil record of the Decabrachia. Here we report Uluciala rotundata gen. et sp. nov. from the upper Campanian to upper Maastrichtian (~74–67 Ma, Upper Cretaceous), South Dakota, which shows an intermediate morphology between Sepiida and Sepiolida. This discovery was facilitated by a new approach in palaeontology, the Digital fossil-mining method incorporating a zero-shot learning AI model. Uluciala rotundata demonstrates ……
Read the original article on Communications Biology
Article inforamation
Kanta Sugiura, Shin Ikegami, Yusuke Takeda, Jörg Mutterlose, Mehmet Oguz Derin, Aya Kubota, Harufumi Nishida, Kazuki Tainaka, Takahiro Harada, Neil H. Landman & Yasuhiro Iba
The oldest sepioid cephalopod from the Cretaceous discovered by Digital fossil-mining with zero-shot learning AI. Commun Biol (2026).
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-026-09519-9
