Talk:Tullimonstrum gregarium

From Palaeos

sorry for the rush job, i didnt add any sources because i wrote most of it from memory. the location of the anus is my own interpretation as i have seen a structure in that area on some specimins. im currently writing a paper on these guys trying to find out what they are, so far my attempts to link them to a soft bodied primitive relative of opibanina (i chose opibanina as a perspective relative because its the only creature ive seen that has a similar bauplan, and it has also been linking to anamalocaris which is known to have members that have soft swiming structures) have proven fruitless. i have at least come up with some ideas of its lifestyle.

I see it as a free swiming scavenger, swiming in the shallow waters feeding on dead animals, its tail is perfectly positioned and proportioned to provide for balance when pulling. i see it as using its proboscis to pull peices of meat out of dead creatures, other creatures with this lifestyle are known from that time and place, hagfish for instance. this would also explain why it was able to reach such large sizes and why shells are never found within its gut (and possibly why there are few specimins with anything resembeling a gut trace). i see the structure connected to the eyes as misinterpreted, i think its more likely to be an internal structure because it is found in the middle of the carbon trace that is the fossil.

I may add more to this discussion page later, sometime within the next few weeks im going up to ardmore (i live in north texas) and my geology teacher is a personal freind of a major fossil distributor in ardmore and said distributor will let me look at his specimins of tullimonstrum. ill be posting my own reconstruction as well as others as soon as i have some free time at my home computer. ive found at least one specimin on the internet that appears to have a nerve cord, and makes the bar structure look like it is connected to a nerve center (looks like a pair of ganglion) and a possible gut trace: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Galaxy/8152/PALEOBOOKBURPEETULLYMONSTER.JPG

anyway can someone critique this idea of mine? --Theburk 07:49, 22 March 2007 (PDT)