A group of researchers headed by Victoria “Tory” McCoy, a 2006 graduate of North Allegheny High School have solved the mystery surrounded around the completely weird-looking Tully monster.
The team of researchers identified Tully Monster as an aquatic vertebrate which is very much similar to the modern-day lamprey. The results of the research are published in the ‘Nature’ journal on March 16, 2016.
The Tully Monster has been baffling paleontologists for decades, as many experts believed that it was an insect or snail. The bizarre pincer-like mouth and wide opened eyes perplexed scientists, and they were in a dilemma while choosing its species.
The new study makes it clear that this ancient living being has a precursor to a backbone, and this makes it an aquatic vertebrate. Earlier, experts have mistaken this backbone as the monster’s gut.
Victoria McCoy is a Ph.D. holder in paleontology, and she completed the study with the help of more than ten fellow researchers. She did this research as a side project for her dissertation at Yale University.
McCoy in a recent talk told that all the features associated with this historical living being are very much unusual when they are all together.
The 27-year-old lady is now a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Leicester. She told that the Tully Monster has always been a mystery for her, and she expressed her happiness for solving this unanswered question.
This ancient creature was first unearthed in 1958 by paleontologist Francis Tully. From then, many fossils of this mystery monster were found, but till now, nobody was successful in determining its species.
