Ancient octopuses may have been up to 19 meters long, study finds

SAPPORO - Giant octopuses that lived between 100 million and 72 million years ago may have reached a total length of up to 19 meters, making them among the largest invertebrates known to science, and were likely apex ocean predators, according to new research led by a Japanese university.

The study published in the journal Science on April 23 suggests that while marine ecosystems have been dominated by vertebrate predators like sharks for hundreds of millions of years, these finned octopuses, whose size evokes the mythical kraken, may have been a rare exception.