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For more than half a century, scientists have puzzled over the strange creature, dubbed the Tully Monster. He evolved about 307 million years ago in a coastal estuary, in what is now the northeastern Illinois.
However, researchers announced Wednesday that they have solved the mystery. As quoted by Reuters, they published their discovery in the journal Nature.
Researchers analyzed many fossils of creatures called the scientific Tullimonstrum gregarium. From the study, it was found that the Tully Monster is not a segmented worms or slugs which can swim, but it is a jawless fish called lampreys.
"I'll put the Tully Monster in the top rank as the most bizarre creatures," said paleontologist from the University of Leicester, Victoria McCoy, who conducted the study at Yale University.
The creature body like a torpedo, jointed, has a similar section to the end of claw-like snout, and his eyes were on the end of a rigid rod that extends over the head.
style="text-align: justify;">Tully Monster has a length of about 35 centimeters and has a vertical tail fin nan length and has a narrow dorsal fin.
A reconstruction cangih fossil find, that the creature vertebrate, with gills and a rigid rod or notochord - stem cartilage skeleton that supports the body - and serves as a spine that is not perfect. Previously, the notochord is identified as the intestine.
"I've always liked the work like a detective, and in palaeontology it is not much better than this," said the expert paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History New York, James Lamsdell.
"Our repeated study of these specimens have shown, that the creature is a very strange lamprey, an eel-like vertebrate groups that live in the river at this time."
Tullimonstrum live in shallow marine environments along with sharks, jellyfish, shrimp, amphibians, and mimi.
"He ate with using his snout ... We do not know what to eat living creatures, whether she predators or scavengers," said McCoy.
The creature was named Tully Monster in honor of amateur fossil hunters, Francis Tully, which was first found in pit coal mining Illinois in 1958 and brought it to the experts at the Field Museum of Chicago.
"The puzzle has made palaeontologists confusion," said Field Museum palaeontologist, Scott Lidgard, where there are 1,800 Tullimonstrum specimens in the museum and is the official state fossil of Illinois.
"I was blown away when the results are found," he added.
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