The oddest animal that ever lived

With a strange tubular body, eyes on the end of stalks and teeth at the end of a long narrow trunk, it is a sea creature that has baffled scientists since it was first discovered 58 years ago.

But now the Tully Monster, as the bizarre sea creature is nicknamed, has finally been identified by scientists who say the odd looking animal had been a predatory vertebrate related to lampreys.

It is thought to have prowled the muddy coastal waters, around 300 million years ago and some had thought it was related to a squid.

But molluscs like squids are invertebrate, meaning they do not have an internal backbone.

New research on the Tully Monster has shown these creatures had a stiffened rod of cartilage that supported its body and gills.

This means the weird looking creatures were predatory vertebrates, similar to some primitive fish.

Victoria McCoy, a paleontologist who conducted the research said: ‘I was first intrigued by the mystery of the Tully Monster.

‘With all of the exceptional fossils, we had a very clear picture of what it looked like, but no clear picture of what it was.

‘It’s so different from its modern relatives that we don’t know much about how it lived.

‘It has big eyes and lots of teeth, so it was probably a predator.’

The Tully Monster, officially named Tullim onstrum gregarium after the amateur fossil hunter who found it Francis Tully, was first discovered in 1958.

Since then the creature has become hugely popular and even appears on the side of trucks.

Using the Field Museum’s collection of 2,000 Tully monster fossils, Miss McCoy and her colleagues analyzed the morphology and preservation of the animal.

Source: Daily mail

N.H.Kh