Scientists Solve The Enigmatic 'Tully Monster' Mystery Found 50 Years Ago

The mysterious "Tully Monster" was discovered half a century ago, but it has only now been classified by researchers. They have understood that it is a 307-million-year-old vertebrate that has a link with the modern lamprey.

Discovered first in 1958 by an amateur fossil lover, Francis Tully, near an Illinois mine, the remains of the monster were discovered in the Mazon Creek region.

While the monster has strange dimensions and physique, and an interesting name of Tullimonstrum gregarium, the creature itself has been a mystery.

This became the state fossil of Illinois in 1989 after Francis Tully died.

The Tully monster was soft-bodied and tubular, with a size ranging from 6 to 12 inches. Its eyes bulged out of a bar, rather like a hammerhead shark. While it showed a tail fin on one end, the other had a long, narrow snout that was tapering, toothy and claw-like.

These creatures used to swim in temperate coastal waters of a Carboniferous-era sea. Their colleagues were worms, jellyfish and sea cucumbers.

A report published by a team of researchers from the Field Museum, Yale University, Argonne National Laboratory and the American Museum of Natural History led by paleontologist Victoria McCoy, revealed the study, after digitizing and building up a huge database of fossil images.

"The Tully monster is very weird looking[,] but we found it is related to modern lamprey," McCoy said. "It shows us how evolution can take something very familiar and make it very weird without changing what we know about the tree of life."

Till now even the fundamental classification of the monster was not known, however, the current report is exhaustive.

The study was published in the March 16 edition of the journal Nature.