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An artist's reconstruction shows the Tully Monster, a type of jawless fish called a lamprey, as it would have looked 300 million years ago in this image released on March 16, 2016. The so-called “Tully Monster” had a crane-like neck, tooth-filled jaws resembling a lobster claw, and eyes mounted at either end of a bar across the middle of its back. Thousands of fossil specimens of the foot-long sea beast, that lived more than 307 million years ago, have been uncovered from a single site close to Chicago in Illinois, US. Since its discovery in coal mining pits by amateur fossil hunter Francis Tully in 1958, the “monster” has acquired local celebrity status, with its image appearing on the bodywork of trucks and trailers. Yet scientists had no idea what kind of creature it was – until now. A new study has shown that the Tully Monster was a primitive vertebrate, an early ancestor of the lamprey, and that it had gills and a rudimentary spinal cord. (Photo by Sean McMahon/Reuters/Yale University)
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