tullimonstrum gregarium
in addition to a state song, flower, animal, rock, et cetera, most states also claim a "state fossil". some were much more interesting than others. while Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio share the iconic trilobite, and Alaska has the woolly mammoth, North Carolina got shark teeth and Massachusetts got dinosaur tracks. however, to me the most interesting of all was Illinois: the tully monster, or formally, tullimonstrum, named for Francis Tully who discovered the fossil in Illinois in the 1950s.
despite it's name, tullimonstrum is only about 12 inches long at most, living in muddy coastal waters during the late carboniferous period. rather, it's described as monstrous probably because its the absolutely the weirdest looking thing in the entire world, with a long proboscis with jaws at the end, two long stalks for eyes (probably), and round holes that may be gills. it is unclear whether it was vertebrate and a relative of the modern lampreys, or an invertebrate, such as a worm, mollusc, gastropod, or conodont.
it's also interesting that tullimonstrum lived in the carboniferous period, since its body plan would fit more alongside the other freaks (i say this with affection) of the cambrian period, rather than the "Age of Amphibians", when animals were beginning to take a more familiar, standardized shape.is it possible tullimonstum is a living fossil even millions of years ago? If it was indeed some sort of transitional fossil, a missing link in the grand scheme of life, then the question arises: where are its relatives?
One possibility is that the Tully Monster's relatives were soft-bodied creatures that didn’t fossilize well, leaving little to no trace for us to find. Or perhaps, its lineage did not survive the various mass extinctions and environmental shifts that our planet has undergone.The absence of clear relatives or descendants of the Tully Monster adds to its mystery. It's possible that Tullimonstrum was part of a lineage that just didn't make it.
Alternatively, the relatives of the Tully Monster might be out there, hidden in the fossil record, or even still around today, just waiting to be discovered.
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