This is the “Fossil Friday” post #304.  Expect this to be a regular feature of the website.  We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com.  Please include a short description or story.  Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!

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For Valentines Day, we have a nice heartwarming Tullymonster reunion story we received from long-time ESCONI member and Mazon Creek Collector Jim Alann. Jim has sent us many contributions for Fossil Friday over the years, all of them memorable!

• A breathtaking Mazon Creek spider from Pit 1 (see Fossil Friday #71).
• A nearly perfect Mazon Creek eurypterid (see Fossil Friday #75).
• Helen Asher autographed Essexella asherae (see Fossil Friday #158). In case you didn’t know, Helen is the namesake for Essexella asherae.
• J.C. Carr’s Pecopteris vestita/Crenulopteris acadica (see Fossil Friday #162).
• A stunning Alethopteris sullivantii (see Fossil Friday #277).

Here’s Jim’s story…

“Here is a heartwarming tully monster reunion story that every Mazon creek fossil aficionado is sure to appreciate! In fact, I think this should soften the hearts of even the most petrified of paleo hearts out there!

The story begins in the early 2000’s when over the space of a few years, I was afforded the opportunity to purchase Mazon Creek fossils from several members of a multi-generational fossil hunting family in the Morris & Coal City area. At the time, I was looking to fill some voids in my collection and was looking for pit#11 animals and particularly a very nice tully monster. I knew that the chance of finding my own with my limited trips out to the pit #11 islands and other overgrown tully areas was pretty slim.

I was presented with a very nice & crisp single-half tully monster for my consideration. Although it was only a single-half, it was largely complete with nice contrast and a strong eye bar, so I made the purchase. Because it was only a half, he did not make the fossil display cabinet, but rather I put together a small shadow box display (see photo)  & hung him on the wall in the Fossil Room.

Fast forward to last week when I’m sitting in bed on a lazy Saturday morning, enjoying my coffee and perusing the eBay offerings on my ipad. I came across an auction where a seller in Florida was offering a small group of single-half & repaired tullies for sale. My attention was immediately drawn to the triangular-shaped tully and I remember saying to myself “ha, looks alot like one of mine…. hey…. wait a minute, that looks a real lot like one of mine”! I immediately jumped up and grabbed my laptop, where like all other hardcore fossil nerds, I have my entire collection on curating software. I brought up the entry with my single-half tully photo ( black background) and compared it with the sellers photo (white background) and could’nt believe what I was seeing… the curled proboscis and the tail area were identical. It was absolutely the other half of my tully that I purchased over 20 years ago!

I immediately messaged the seller with my photo and a generous offer asking him to break out the matching single-half tully and sell it to me. I was a tense couple of hours waiting for him to respond, because he had a “buy-it-now” option on the auction and someone could have swooped in and bought the entire lot, but he did thankfully respond a short time later and graciously accepted my offer to break out and sell me the other half. He further explained that he had bought his half from the same individual 10 years earlier than when I bought mine in 2005. (I will now insert my humble opinion that it is a “sacrilege” to knowingly separate the halves of any Mazon Creek fossil for increased financial gain or any other reason)   We then shared a few other brief funny stories about our fossil hunting & purchasing adventures…it turns out that we knew a lot of the same people.

So now we will be soon reuniting two halves of a single tully monster separated by over 30 years and residing in separated collections on opposite coasts! The only thing that would have made this better is if we had personally found the fossils rather than purchasing….but either way, it’s pretty cool and I hope the ESCONI community gets a chuckle out of this story”.

The original half…

And, the “missing” half!

As always, thanks for sharing, Jim!