This is Mazon Monday post #303.  What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at  email:esconi.info@gmail.com.

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Happy 60th Birthday to the Tully Monster! Well, actually tomorrow is the day. And, I guess technically it’s really been 307 – 309 million years, but who’s really counting. Eugene Richardson, Jr., who first called it “Mr. Tully’s monster”, described the animal in the paper “Wormlike Fossil from the Pennsylvanian of Illinois”, which was published on January 6th, 1966 in the journal Science.

Francis Tully, a Texaco pipe fitter and amateur explorer, found his first Tully Monster in the Peabody Coal Company’s Pit 11 mine in 1955. Pit 11 is now an Illinois State Park and known as Mazonia-Braidwood State Fish and Wildlife Area. When the site opened in 1951, fossil collectors began finding interesting animals, unknown to paleontology. Worms, fish, jellyfish, shrimp, and other arthropods were found commonly. And, although fossil plants were found, they were found at a much lower rate that in the terrestrial deposit areas around Braidwood, Coal City, and Morris.

“When you’re hunting fossils, you’re looking for just anything at all,” Tully told Tribune reporter Peter Gorner in 1987. “The kick is to find something nobody has found before. Then, the idea is to share the things with others. That’s why I seldom have sold any. I trade them off or give ’em away.”

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Tully’s discovery baffled scientists, who eventually christened the creature after the Lockport resident. Tully’s monster was recognized as the official state fossil of Illinois 35 years ago this week, but the designation did not come without hiccups along the way — and, unfortunately, arrived too late for its staunchest advocate to celebrate.

“I found two rocks that had cracked open from natural weathering,” Tully told the Tribune about his major discovery near Mazon Creek. “They held something completely different. I knew right away. I’d never seen anything like it. None of the books had it. I’d never seen it in museums or at rock clubs. So I brought it to the Field Museum to see if they could figure out what the devil it was.”

See “How the Tully monster became Illinois’ official state fossil“.

Richardson gave the creature the nickname “Mr. Tully’s Monster”, as he was unsure how to classify it. The nickname stuck, becoming the origin of its name. The animal was new to science as no one had seen anything quite like it.

From Mazon Monday #185, “The Naming of the Tully Monster”.

On one of our visits to the Field Museum to retrieve a loaned specimen from Dr. Richardson he inquired if we had seen any of these strange creatures. Since we had not he offered to show us some specimens that were laid out on a table in George Langford’s office. While we were viewing the specimens Dr. Rainer Zangerl, Geology Department Head, walked into the office in search of Dr. Richardson. Seeing us viewing the specimens he exclaimed “Are those some more of Tully’s monsters?”. The name stuck and Richardson utilized it to the fullest. After all, the thought of monsters evokes much attention. In naming this creature Dr. Richardson wanted to retain the name Tully monster, therefore he Latinized it calling it Tullimonstrum gregarium -gregarium meaning common. This was Richardson’s way of chiding his colleagues that this rare, unusual fossil is plentiful in his own back yard.

In the initial paper, Richardson recognized that Tullymonstrum gregarium didn’t fit easily into any known classification. He famously wrote “While this obscure but plentiful animal is being studied, I prefer not to assign it to a phylum.” In a later paper “” with Ralph Gordon Johnson, they wrote “There is no compelling reason to assign Tullimonstrum to any of the known phyla.  It could be imagined as an aberrant member of one of several phyla but the critical evidence is not available.” Ever since, T. gregarium‘s place in the tree of life has been problematic as it has been aligned with arthropods, worms, vertebrates, mollusks, even conodonts.

Tullymonstrum gregarium became the State Fossil of Illinois on August 31st, 1989, when Governor James Thompson signed the legislation making it official after an almost two-year delay. Here is an article about the desgination.  It appeared in Andy Hay’s “Creature Corner” and later in an ESCONI book by the same name.

State fossil, prairie grass chosen

Springfield–

The “Tully Monster” became Illinois’ official state fossil! This was just one day after the “Big Bluestem” became Illinois’ official state prairie grass.

Governor James R. Thompson signed into law both the fossil bill, sponsored by Rep. Larry Wennlund, R-New Lenox, and the prairie grass bill, sponsored by Rep. Tom Ryder, Rerseyville.

The Tully Monster and Big Bluestem are the latest additions to official Illinois symbols, which include the oak, violet cardinal, fluorite, monarch butterfly, white tailed deer and bluegill. Several, including the oak, violet, cardinal and blue- gill, were elected by Illinois school children.

Wennlund said his bill simply declared the Tullimonstrum gregarium to be the official state fossil because it is unique and there would not have been any opposition in a school election.

Amateur collector Francis Tully found the first stone impressions of the 300 million year old sea animal in the late 1950’s in the Will-Grundy-Kankakee county area. Wennlund said it was a foot long, and had a soft body and ate meat.

The Big Bluestem, one of several prairie grasses that made Illinois soil rich, was still growing to heights of eight feet in the early 1800’s. It had a three-branched seed head that gave it a nickname of turkeyfoot grass.

The Big Bluestem won its designation by beating Indiangrass, Prairie Dropseed and Little Bluestem in a 4316 vote contest at 50 grade schools.

(NOTE: Francis Tully was an ESCONI member.)

Recent research, by McCoy et al in 2016, again in 2016 by Clements et al, and by McCoy et al again in 2020, classify T. gregarium as a jawless fish similar to a lamprey or hagfish.  If that theory is correct, the Tully Monster will fill in a gap in the evolutionary history of early vertebrates.  There has been some  disagreement (Sallan in 2017), although that study denies the vertebrate ancestry without proposing a viable alternative.  

The newest research was carried out by a team in Japan at the National Museum of Nature and Science. The researchers used 3D laser scanning and x-ray micro-computed tomography to reach their conclusions which refute the vertebrate ancestry of the Tully Monster. Unfortunately, they also fail to propose a viable alternative classification.

Some actual tully monsters found by of Mr. Tully.

Thanks go out to Ralph Jewell for some of the photos in this post.  The Tully Monster photos come from slides he obtained from Walter Leitz.  Walter and his wife Rita were a long time ESCONI members and Mazon Creek collectors, who very generously contributed to The Mazon Creek Project, the science of Mazon Creek, and Mazon Creek fossil collecting in general.