New details of Tully monster revealed

[Still Waters]

For more than half a century, the Tully monster (Tullimonstrum gregarium), an enigmatic animal that lived about 300 million years ago, has confounded paleontologists, with its strange anatomy making it difficult to classify. Recently, a group of researchers proposed a hypothesis that Tullimonstrum was a vertebrate similar to cyclostomes (jawless fish like lamprey and hagfish). If it was, then the Tully monster would potentially fill a gap in the evolutionary history of early vertebrates. Studies so far have both supported and rejected this hypothesis.

Now, using 3D imaging technology, a team in Japan believes it has found the answer after uncovering detailed characteristics of the Tully monster that strongly suggest that it was not a vertebrate. However, its exact classification and what type of invertebrate it was is still to be decided.

https://phys.org/news/2023-04-tully-monster-revealed.html

Three-dimensional anatomy of the Tully monster casts doubt on its presumed vertebrate affinities

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pala.12646

[Tatetopa]

Excellent. That has been undetermined for decades.

[Earl.Of.Trumps]

Wow.

I can sleep at night now

 

 

[beelzebufo]

Every time I look at this guy, I just see a slug with a sock-puppet arm for a mouth. It truly is among the most majestic creatures that have graced this planet.