Tullimonstrum

Also known as Tully Monster

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Image: Tullimonstrum gregarium1.JPG

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Commons category: Tullimonstrum
taxon name: Tullimonstrum
taxon common name: トゥリモンストゥルム属

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Article

18 sections

Contents

Description
History of discovery
Classification
Arguments in favor of vertebrate affinities
McCoy et al. (2016)
Clements et al. (2016)
McCoy et al. (2020); Wiemann et al. (2022)
Arguments in favour of non-vertebrate affinities
Sallan et al. (2017)
Rogers et al. (2019)
Mikami et al. (2023)
Paleoecology
Taphonomy
The dancing worms of Turkana
In culture
See also
References
External links

Tullimonstrum, colloquially known as the Tully monster or sometimes '''Tully's monster, is an extinct genus of soft-bodied bilaterian marine animal that lived in shallow tropical coastal waters of muddy estuaries during the Pennsylvanian, about 310 million years ago. A single species, T. gregarium', is known. Examples of Tullimonstrum'' have been found only in sediments deposited far from the palaeocoast (formally termed the Essex biota), in the Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois, United States. Its classification has been the subject of controversy, and interpretations of the fossil have likened it to molluscs, arthropods, conodonts, worms, tunicates, and vertebrates. This creature had a mostly cigar-shaped body, with a triangular tail fin, two long stalked eyes, and a proboscis tipped with a mouth-like appendage. Based on the fossils, it seems this creature was a nektonic carnivore that hunted in the ocean's water column. When Tullimonstrum was alive, Illinois was a mixture of ecosystems like muddy estuaries, marine environments, rivers and lakes.

== Description == thumb|Reconstruction of Tullimonstrum according to Johnson et al. (1969) Tullimonstrum probably reached lengths of up to ; the smallest individuals are about long.