A team of paleontologists named a squid after the US president, Joe Biden.

FILE - An octopus swims at the zoo in Frankfurt, Germany on Friday, Nov. 25, 2005. In research published Tuesday, March 8, 2022, in the journal Nature Communications, scientists have described the oldest known fossil ancestor of octopuses – an approximately 330 million-year-old specimen found in Montana. (AP Photo/Bernd Kammerer, File)

The fossil find suggests that the creatures were around before dinosaurs.

The Royal Museum in Canada received the Syllipsimopodi bideni in 1988 after it was dug up in Montana.

A scientist pulled it out of the drawer for a closer look.

Christopher Whalen, a paleontologist from New York's American Museum of Natural History, told the New York Times that he first noticed the squid's preserved arms.

It was sitting in a museum since the 80s and no one realized it was important.

Syllipsimopodi bideni.

Syllipsimopodi bideni. Photograph: Christopher Whalen/American Museum of Natural History/PA

The Syllipsimopodi bideni was in the ocean for over 300 years. According to Whalen, it is the oldest known descendant of the vampire squids and octopuses.

The first name of the fossil is prehensile foot, since it has 10 arms and is the oldest known cephalopod to have suckers on its arms. Vampire squids, which are not squids but close relatives to the octopus, have eight arms and two strings.

The fossil appeared to have a preserved ink sac, according to the paper.

The new species was described by Whalen and Neil Landman in the journal Nature Communications.

They named the squid after Biden because they were encouraged by his plans to address climate change and to fund scientific research, Whalen said in an email to the New York Times.

The president is not the first to have his species named after him. A spider, a hairworm, and several fish were named after Barack Obama. Donald Trump was the inspiration for a blind worm-like amphibian that buries its head in the sand.