''Palaeoctopus'' is an extinct

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

octopus An octopus (: octopuses or octopodes) is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. Like oth ...

es that lived during the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...

. It contains one valid species, ''P. newboldi'', which has been found in

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

Taxonomy

''Calais newboldi'' was named by Henry B. Woodward in 1896 for a nearly-complete specimen from the Sahel Alma

lagerstätte A Fossil-Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that preserves an exceptionally high amount of palaeontological information. ''Konzentrat-Lagerstätten'' preserv ...

of Lebanon. However, that genus name was

preoccupied In biology, a homonym is a name for a taxon that is identical in spelling to another such name, that belongs to a different taxon. The rule in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is that the first such name to be published is the s ...

by the beetle ''

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a French port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Calais is the largest city in Pas-de-Calais. The population of the city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,6 ...

''. Woodward named ''Palaeoctopus'' as a replacement later the same year.

Embrik Strand Embrik Strand (2 June 1876 – 3 November 1947) was an entomologist and arachnologist who classified many insect and spider species, including the greenbottle blue tarantula. Life and career Strand was born in Ål, Norway. He studied at t ...

proposed the alternate replacement name ''Calaita'' in 1928. '' Beloteuthis libanotica'' was named by

Adolf Naef Adolf Naef (1 May 1883 – 11 May 1949) was a Swiss zoologist and palaeontologist who worked on cephalopods and systematics. Although he struggled with academic politics throughout his career and difficult conditions during World War I and II, h ...

in 1922 for a supposed teudopsid

gladius ''Gladius'' () is a Latin word properly referring to the type of sword that was used by Ancient Rome, ancient Roman foot soldiers starting from the 3rd century BC and until the 3rd century AD. Linguistically, within Latin, the word also came t ...

from Sahel Alma. It was moved to a new genus, ''Parateudopsis'', by Theo Engeser and Joachim Reitner in 1986. The specimen was eventually reidentified as an isolated gladius vestige of ''P. newboldi''. A second species, ''P. pelagicus'', was named by Dirk Fuchs and colleagues in 2008 for an alleged gladius vestige from the Vallecillo lagerstätte of

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. It was subsequently revealed to be a gular plate from a coelacanth, possibly a juvenile '' Megalocoelacanthus''.

References

Octopuses Monotypic prehistoric cephalopod genera Fossil taxa described in 1896 {{octopus-stub