Francis Tully was an amateur fossil hunter who in 1955 found the remains of a prehistoric marine animal for which scientists had to create a phylum. The creature was subsequently named Tullimonstrum or the "Tully Monster" in his honor.
Mr. Tully, a retired pipefitter for Texaco, discovered the creature in 1955 among coal-shale piles near Mazon Creek, south of Morris. He found the fossil in a rock that had cracked from natural weathering. The fossil beds are located in ironstone concretions formed approximately 300 million years ago in the mid-Pennsylvanian epoch of the Carboniferous period. The area was the shoreline of the primordial Sea of Illinois 90 million years before the first dinosaurs.
The creature was about a foot long and had a tubelike body and a spade-shaped tail. It sported two tentacle-like sensors or eyes and a snout similar to an elephant's. "I knew right away," he said in an interview earlier this year. "I'd never seen anything like it."
"We could not even decide what phylum to put it in," wrote the late E.S. Richardson, curator of fossil invertebrates at the Field Museum. In 1966, Richardson decided to name the fossil and introduce it formally to science. He wrote a paper, officially giving the creature the name it had borne for years, this time in Latin. It was called "Tullimonstrum gregarium - Tully monster, common."
"I was very pleased," Mr. Tully said last year. "Darn right."
Richard Leary, curator of geology for the Illinois State Museum, describes Mr. Tully's creature as looking "like a pregnant earthworm with fins and an elephant snout." Scientists speculate that the creature lived 280 to 340 million years ago and ate mysterious jelly-like creatures called Blobs.
Fossilized remains of the creature have been found only in Illinois, and fossil hunters from around the world come to Illinois to search for more examples of it. In the spring of 1987, the Illinois General Assembly passed a measure calling for a vote by schoolchildren on whether to declare it the official state fossil, which would make Illinois one of 20 states with an official fossil. In 1989 Tullimonstrum gregarium was officially designated the State Fossil of Illinois.
Mr. Tully's find spurred a lifelong interest in fossils. He donated to museums some specimens of his monster and other creatures. Others were kept at his home in a room he once described as "running over with fossils."
"I'll never quit," he told The Tribune last year. "The only time I'll quit looking is when I can't look anymore. Then my spirit will do the looking."
Mr. Tully was born May 23, 1912 and died Wednesday, September 9, 1987 at age 75 in St. Joseph's Medical Center, Joliet. He was formerly of Lockport. Services were held at the O'Neil Funeral Home, Lockport. His ashes were scattered over the strip-mined hills where he hunted fossils for 40 years, a funeral home official said. Excerpts from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, Friday, September 11, 1987.
Mr. Tully, a retired pipefitter for Texaco, discovered the creature in 1955 among coal-shale piles near Mazon Creek, south of Morris. He found the fossil in a rock that had cracked from natural weathering. The fossil beds are located in ironstone concretions formed approximately 300 million years ago in the mid-Pennsylvanian epoch of the Carboniferous period. The area was the shoreline of the primordial Sea of Illinois 90 million years before the first dinosaurs.
The creature was about a foot long and had a tubelike body and a spade-shaped tail. It sported two tentacle-like sensors or eyes and a snout similar to an elephant's. "I knew right away," he said in an interview earlier this year. "I'd never seen anything like it."
"We could not even decide what phylum to put it in," wrote the late E.S. Richardson, curator of fossil invertebrates at the Field Museum. In 1966, Richardson decided to name the fossil and introduce it formally to science. He wrote a paper, officially giving the creature the name it had borne for years, this time in Latin. It was called "Tullimonstrum gregarium - Tully monster, common."
"I was very pleased," Mr. Tully said last year. "Darn right."
Richard Leary, curator of geology for the Illinois State Museum, describes Mr. Tully's creature as looking "like a pregnant earthworm with fins and an elephant snout." Scientists speculate that the creature lived 280 to 340 million years ago and ate mysterious jelly-like creatures called Blobs.
Fossilized remains of the creature have been found only in Illinois, and fossil hunters from around the world come to Illinois to search for more examples of it. In the spring of 1987, the Illinois General Assembly passed a measure calling for a vote by schoolchildren on whether to declare it the official state fossil, which would make Illinois one of 20 states with an official fossil. In 1989 Tullimonstrum gregarium was officially designated the State Fossil of Illinois.
Mr. Tully's find spurred a lifelong interest in fossils. He donated to museums some specimens of his monster and other creatures. Others were kept at his home in a room he once described as "running over with fossils."
"I'll never quit," he told The Tribune last year. "The only time I'll quit looking is when I can't look anymore. Then my spirit will do the looking."
Mr. Tully was born May 23, 1912 and died Wednesday, September 9, 1987 at age 75 in St. Joseph's Medical Center, Joliet. He was formerly of Lockport. Services were held at the O'Neil Funeral Home, Lockport. His ashes were scattered over the strip-mined hills where he hunted fossils for 40 years, a funeral home official said. Excerpts from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, Friday, September 11, 1987.
Francis Tully was an amateur fossil hunter who in 1955 found the remains of a prehistoric marine animal for which scientists had to create a phylum. The creature was subsequently named Tullimonstrum or the "Tully Monster" in his honor.
Mr. Tully, a retired pipefitter for Texaco, discovered the creature in 1955 among coal-shale piles near Mazon Creek, south of Morris. He found the fossil in a rock that had cracked from natural weathering. The fossil beds are located in ironstone concretions formed approximately 300 million years ago in the mid-Pennsylvanian epoch of the Carboniferous period. The area was the shoreline of the primordial Sea of Illinois 90 million years before the first dinosaurs.
The creature was about a foot long and had a tubelike body and a spade-shaped tail. It sported two tentacle-like sensors or eyes and a snout similar to an elephant's. "I knew right away," he said in an interview earlier this year. "I'd never seen anything like it."
"We could not even decide what phylum to put it in," wrote the late E.S. Richardson, curator of fossil invertebrates at the Field Museum. In 1966, Richardson decided to name the fossil and introduce it formally to science. He wrote a paper, officially giving the creature the name it had borne for years, this time in Latin. It was called "Tullimonstrum gregarium - Tully monster, common."
"I was very pleased," Mr. Tully said last year. "Darn right."
Richard Leary, curator of geology for the Illinois State Museum, describes Mr. Tully's creature as looking "like a pregnant earthworm with fins and an elephant snout." Scientists speculate that the creature lived 280 to 340 million years ago and ate mysterious jelly-like creatures called Blobs.
Fossilized remains of the creature have been found only in Illinois, and fossil hunters from around the world come to Illinois to search for more examples of it. In the spring of 1987, the Illinois General Assembly passed a measure calling for a vote by schoolchildren on whether to declare it the official state fossil, which would make Illinois one of 20 states with an official fossil. In 1989 Tullimonstrum gregarium was officially designated the State Fossil of Illinois.
Mr. Tully's find spurred a lifelong interest in fossils. He donated to museums some specimens of his monster and other creatures. Others were kept at his home in a room he once described as "running over with fossils."
"I'll never quit," he told The Tribune last year. "The only time I'll quit looking is when I can't look anymore. Then my spirit will do the looking."
Mr. Tully was born May 23, 1912 and died Wednesday, September 9, 1987 at age 75 in St. Joseph's Medical Center, Joliet. He was formerly of Lockport. Services were held at the O'Neil Funeral Home, Lockport. His ashes were scattered over the strip-mined hills where he hunted fossils for 40 years, a funeral home official said. Excerpts from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, Friday, September 11, 1987.
Mr. Tully, a retired pipefitter for Texaco, discovered the creature in 1955 among coal-shale piles near Mazon Creek, south of Morris. He found the fossil in a rock that had cracked from natural weathering. The fossil beds are located in ironstone concretions formed approximately 300 million years ago in the mid-Pennsylvanian epoch of the Carboniferous period. The area was the shoreline of the primordial Sea of Illinois 90 million years before the first dinosaurs.
The creature was about a foot long and had a tubelike body and a spade-shaped tail. It sported two tentacle-like sensors or eyes and a snout similar to an elephant's. "I knew right away," he said in an interview earlier this year. "I'd never seen anything like it."
"We could not even decide what phylum to put it in," wrote the late E.S. Richardson, curator of fossil invertebrates at the Field Museum. In 1966, Richardson decided to name the fossil and introduce it formally to science. He wrote a paper, officially giving the creature the name it had borne for years, this time in Latin. It was called "Tullimonstrum gregarium - Tully monster, common."
"I was very pleased," Mr. Tully said last year. "Darn right."
Richard Leary, curator of geology for the Illinois State Museum, describes Mr. Tully's creature as looking "like a pregnant earthworm with fins and an elephant snout." Scientists speculate that the creature lived 280 to 340 million years ago and ate mysterious jelly-like creatures called Blobs.
Fossilized remains of the creature have been found only in Illinois, and fossil hunters from around the world come to Illinois to search for more examples of it. In the spring of 1987, the Illinois General Assembly passed a measure calling for a vote by schoolchildren on whether to declare it the official state fossil, which would make Illinois one of 20 states with an official fossil. In 1989 Tullimonstrum gregarium was officially designated the State Fossil of Illinois.
Mr. Tully's find spurred a lifelong interest in fossils. He donated to museums some specimens of his monster and other creatures. Others were kept at his home in a room he once described as "running over with fossils."
"I'll never quit," he told The Tribune last year. "The only time I'll quit looking is when I can't look anymore. Then my spirit will do the looking."
Mr. Tully was born May 23, 1912 and died Wednesday, September 9, 1987 at age 75 in St. Joseph's Medical Center, Joliet. He was formerly of Lockport. Services were held at the O'Neil Funeral Home, Lockport. His ashes were scattered over the strip-mined hills where he hunted fossils for 40 years, a funeral home official said. Excerpts from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, Friday, September 11, 1987.
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