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Tullimonstrum gregarium (Tully Monster) replica/sculpture

The Tully Monster, so far is apparently unique to Illinois, was a soft-bodied invertebrate that lived in shallow tropical coastal waters of muddy estuaries during the Pennsylvanian geological period, about 300 million years ago. The Tully Monster had a pair of fins not unlike a cuttlefish at the tail end of its body, and possibly vertical fins as well (though the fidelity of preservation of fossils of its soft body makes this difficult to determine), and a long proboscis with eight small sharp teeth with which it may have probed actively for small creatures and edible detritus in the muddy bottom. A stalk protruding from either side of the lower forward body may have had an eye or other sensory organ at its tip, but this is speculative. It was part of the ecological community represented in the unusually rich group of soft-bodied organisms found among the assemblage called the Mazon Creek fossils of, Illinois. Francis Tully found the first of these fossils in 1958. He took the strange creature to the Field Museum, but paleontologists remain stumped as to what phylum Tullimonstrum belongs. In 1989 Tullimonstrum gregarium was officially designated the State Fossil of Illinois.

This specimen is a replica/sculpture and is not cast from an original Tully and has been enhanced by the artist. You get both halves of the nodule.