Posted by I’m still tickled by the British scientists who discovered a cache of ancient squid ink and used it for. . . art:
Paleontologists discovered the remains of the creature, called a Belemnotheutis antiquus, during a dig at a Victorian excavation in Trowbridge, Wilts. They cracked open what appeared to be an ordinary looking rock only to find the one-inch-long black ink sac inside. After realising what they had stumbled across, they took out a small sample of the black substance and ground it up with an ammonia solution. Remarkably, the ink they created was good enough to allow them to draw the squid-like animal and write its Latin name. . . “We felt that drawing the animal with it would be the ultimate self-portrait,” said Dr Wilby. (source)
The Telegraph story notes that “part of the ink sac has been sent to Yale University in America for more in-depth chemical analysis,” but let’s be honest – the Brits got to do the cool part, drawing an extinct squid with its own ink and then labeling it with a dead language. Very cool indeed, Britannia.
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