When I was in college, I didn’t have a DVR (did anyone in 2001?) and I completely missed the “Walking with Prehistoric Beasts” and “The Future is Wild” programs on Animal Planet and was completely bummed out about it. When I finally did get to watch these fascinating programs, I learned that some scientists guess that someday, once humans are extinct, giant squids might be the dominant species. They were even portrayed in the film as being land animals that swing from tree to tree, much like primates. Incredible, right?

I read an article today that may help support this seemingly crazy theory. Apparently prehistoric giant squids may have made their own artwork out of animal bones. These giant geometric patterns may represent self-portraits from the squid—and that these reptile bone art pieces predate the human art that we typically believe to be the first art pieces in history.

A creative squid is not a surprise to me. They seem to be some of the only creatures on earth who remain elusive enough to escape notice from humans; we never even see giant squids until they die and wash up on the shore. This alone makes me believe that they must be intelligent creatures—and that if anyone survives this world after we blow ourselves up fighting one another, why not squids?

Every time I hear about how a giant squid was almost captured—I can only think of one that was captured and then accidentally killed as the humans fought with it, attempting to keep it for “study”—I always root for the squid. We really have no business finding and studying every creature on earth (let alone eating them)—and even if we believe we did, it would be pretty impossible to do in the first place. Why can’t we just leave some creatures alone? Why do we have to seek dominance over animals that aren’t even on land? We wouldn’t even attack squids—or whales, lions, or any other large creatures—if we didn’t have the weaponry. They’d all take us on in a heartbeat.

I don’t know if scientists will be able to prove that these bones are art pieces made by giant squids of the past, but I certainly love the idea of it—and look forward to more findings in the area.

As long as they don’t include the harming of squids in the process.