7" Cretaceous Fossil Squid - Soft-Bodied Preservation

This is a large, 7" fossilized squid from the famous Lebonese lagerstätten with soft bodied preservation. It's Upper Cretaceous in age and comes from a quarry near Hakel, Lebanon. This is quite large for these rare squid fossils and some of the tentacles can faintly be seen. There is also a couple of small unidentified fish preserved next to it.

It is centered on a rectangularly cut, 1" thick slab of limestone that comes with an acrylic display stand. There are a couple of repaired cracks in the rock.

Soft bodied preservation such is this is extremely rare in the fossil record, the the Lebonese lagerstätten is famous for it. These rare squid fossils have been the subject of several research papers and news articles over the past few years. They compared the preserved organic granules in the ink sacks with the structures in modern squid ink and found them to be identical. In fact by dissolving the graduals in an ammonia solution they were even able to write with it. I've linked several of the papers and articles below.

A NEW LOOK AT FOSSIL CEPHALOPODS - Neal Larson, Robert Morton, Peter Larson & UWE Bergman

SQUIDS: THE CRETACEOUS INK WELL

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - Fossil Ink Sacs Yield Jurassic Pigment - A First

The Upper Cretaceous, Lebonese lagerstätten yields some of the most exquisitely preserved fossil fish in the world. The deposit represents a shelf that is estimated to have been 270m below the surface of the sea. Over 80 genre are currently described, with many more still awaiting description. These beautiful fossils have been quarried near Byblos, Lebanon for well over a century and include sharks, rays, shrimp, ray-finned fishes and more.