Tullimonstrum (Tully monster)
Tullimonstrum
- Date
- 1955 · confidence medium
- Place
- Mazon Creek fossil beds, Illinois, United States
- Credited to
- Francis Tully
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
An extinct soft-bodied marine animal found as a fossil in the Mazon Creek strata (Pennsylvanian, about 310 million years ago); its classification remains controversial.
Molluscs, arthropods, conodonts, worms, tunicates and vertebrates have all been proposed as its affinity, without consensus.
What it led to
- Studies of the Mazon Creek Essex fauna
- Debate over the phylogeny of soft-bodied Carboniferous animals