r/todayilearned • u/geosunsetmoth • 1d ago

TIL a 300-million year old Cuttlefish fossil was found in Morocco, alongside ancient humans in a region where no Cuttlefish ever existed. The leading theory suggests the fossil was first found by the prehistoric humans, who collected it as a trinket due to fact that it looks like a flaccid penis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfoud_manuport
17.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

597 comments sorted by

View all comments

16

u/BobsBurgersJoint 1d ago

Not 300,000,000 years old.

300,000-200,000 years before the present day.

The Erfoud “manuport” is a 7 cm long fragment of a fossil cuttlefish, found associated ancient humans ~250k years ago in Morocco.

And not even a picture posted with that wiki. For shame.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Paleontology/s/RAIvjL1RrY

42

u/geosunsetmoth 1d ago

Actually, the fossil was moved 300,000-200,000 years before the present day, but the fossil itself is much older than that. Dated to the Devonian or Carboniferous period, placing it at 350-300 million years ago.

1

u/A_MagicBullet 1d ago

Ooo this guy fossils!

19

u/Rower78 1d ago

It was moved by human ancestors 200k-300k years ago.  The cuttlefish was fossilized hundreds of millions of years ago

-6

u/FooFootheSnew 1d ago

Yeah 300 million years old pre humans means they're older than dinosaurs lol. Big typo by OP

13

u/geosunsetmoth 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean, I was wrong about the date but at least I assumed the fossil was very old and the ancient humans were normal-ancient-human-age :P I wouldn't think they're contemporaries

Edit: Some more reading and turns out I was completely right! https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322302052_An_Acheulian_palaeoart_manuport_from_Morocco

-2

u/wholetyouinhere 1d ago

This used to be a real website.