On the 16th of March, a team of scientists led by Victoria McCoy managed to solve the Tulley Monster affair.
After decades of research and countless night spend pondering on the origin of a prehistoric creature, a team of paleontologists have finally solved the enigma of the so-called Tully Monster.
If you’ve asked a couple of years ago anything about the Tully Monster, anyone would’ve shrugged his shoulders and would have answered that the creature is as mysterious and as elusive as Big Foot.
7What is the Tully Monster?
In the late ‘50s, while searching for fossils in the North Central Illinois, Francis Tully, an amateur paleontologist has unearthed a fossil that looked not nothing described in the books. At that time, no one knew what to make of the little creature.
As it was described at that time, the creature, which received the name of the Tully Monster after the amateur paleontologist who discovered it, had a small, yet very soft body. Moreover, the Tully Monster also possessed a pair of eyes set on two stalks and a mouth that resembled a pincer.
Basically, it looked like a crossbreed between a snail and a lobster. The discovery was made in 1958, and until 2006, no one could say for certain what the creature was.
In 2006, the decade-old riddle was solved by a brilliant scientist by the name of Doctor Victoria McCoy. Victoria McCoy graduated the North Allegheny High School, earning a magna cum laudae degree.
Moreover, the researcher who managed to determine the origin of the Tully Monster received a double BA in mathematics and geology in 2010. The scientist also holds a Ph.D. and is currently involved in multiple research projects.
On the 16th of March, 2016, McCoy, along with several paleontologists published a paper in the Nature journal. According to McCoy, this research project is the first one to attribute any meaning to the Tully Monster.
After decades of research, the team discovered that the Tully beast was, in fact, a precursor of the backbone, which makes it either a primitive fish or a vertebrate. Furthermore, the team also managed to straighten out a misconception about the Tully Monster.
According to McCoy, for several years, scientists have been mistaken the creature’s backbone for its gut, thus the difficulty of establishing its genus. As a vertebrate or primitive fish, the Tully Monster, which apparently roamed the ocean several million years ago, might have something in common with snails and squids.
Furthermore, due to its pincer-like mouth, the team of scientists hypothesized that the Tully Monster may have been either a predator or a scavenger.
Given the measurement of the specimen unearthed by Francis Tully and other fossil hunters, the team determined that the Tully Monster measures somewhere between a few inches to a foot in length.
Photo credits:wikipedia
