The hypothesis of geologist Mark McMenamin about the existence of the mythical Kraken to explain the Ichthyosaur bones found in Nevada's Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park has left a few scientists skeptical.

McMenamin made the controversial theory that proposes the reason why a number of Ichthyosaurs were found grouped together because they were eaten by the legendary Kraken.

According to McMenamin and his wife Dianna Schulte-McMenamin the fossils were dumped there by a gigantic squid who feasted on the Ichthyosaurs. The famous Kraken then apparently carefully arranged the Ichthyosaur bones in a pattern that suggests some intelligence on the part of the squid.

The problem is that the McMenamins have no concrete data to back up this wild claim. Researchers haven't found any evidence of a Kraken near the Ichthyosaur fossils nor anywhere else for that matter. Paleontologists normally have the fossils to back up new theories. McMenamin's Kraken is still missing from the fossil record.

And should the Kraken have been responsible for the Ichthyosaur slaughter, the bones should have more damage to it. A creature that has the squid's beak or the bony hooks inside some tentacle suckers should inflict damage that would reflect on the Ichthyosaur bones, according to Hans-Dieter Sues, a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Another paleontologist, Thomas Holtz Jr. of the University of Michigan believes that there is another explanation for the Ichthyosaur fossils and it doesn't have anything to do with the Kraken. The vertebra of the Ichthyosaur which was carefully arranged could be attributed to just the way they fell apart and not because of an intelligent predator. Marine and soil scientists should also be consulted to determine if the bones were out of their natural order.

Dr. Holtz does agree that there could have been a giant squid or octopus-like cephalopods that hunted dinosaurs in the Triassic after all there is evidence that large squids existed in the Cretaceous Period. But at this point, the existence of a Kraken from such scant evidence is too much of a leap.

"It is the next step that is the giant leap: Bunch of dead ichthyosaurs, therefore giant cephalopods for which we have no evidence."